U.S. patent application number 16/684111 was filed with the patent office on 2021-05-20 for fair demographic ratio pacing.
This patent application is currently assigned to Xandr Inc.. The applicant listed for this patent is Xandr Inc.. Invention is credited to Moussa Taifi, Yana Volkovich.
Application Number | 20210150584 16/684111 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 1000004494622 |
Filed Date | 2021-05-20 |
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United States Patent
Application |
20210150584 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Volkovich; Yana ; et
al. |
May 20, 2021 |
Fair Demographic Ratio Pacing
Abstract
Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example,
receiving information defining an attribute of interest for the
impression, wherein the attribute of interest comprises a plurality
of categories of values, and receiving information defining a
respective probability for each respective value of the plurality
of categories of values for the impression. Further, information
about current values of the plurality of categories for the
attribute of interest may be received and a pacing value may be
determined based on the respective probability for each respective
value of the plurality of categories of values, along with the
information about current values the plurality of categories for
the attribute of interest. A respective bid value of a bid may be
adjusted using the pacing value and the adjusted bid value may be
used in an auction to fill the impression. This permits automatic
detection and correction of an inadvertent skew introduced when
serving ads and other content. Other embodiments are disclosed.
Inventors: |
Volkovich; Yana; (New York,
NY) ; Taifi; Moussa; (Jackson Heights, NY) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Xandr Inc. |
New York |
NY |
US |
|
|
Assignee: |
Xandr Inc.
New York
NY
|
Family ID: |
1000004494622 |
Appl. No.: |
16/684111 |
Filed: |
November 14, 2019 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/0244 20130101;
G06Q 30/0269 20130101; G06Q 30/0277 20130101; G06Q 30/0275
20130101 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 30/02 20060101
G06Q030/02 |
Claims
1. A device, comprising: a processing system including a processor;
and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when
executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of
operations, the operations comprising: receiving a message from a
web server requesting publication of one or more web pages, wherein
the message corresponds to an ad call; generating a current bid
request for bids to respond to the ad call; receiving one or more
bids to provide an advertisement in response to the current bid
request, wherein each respective bid of the one or more bids is
associated with a respective advertising campaign and wherein each
respective bid of the one or more bids comprises a respective bid
value; receiving information defining an attribute of interest for
the ad call, wherein the attribute of interest comprises a
plurality of categories of values, and wherein the receiving the
information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving
information defining a respective probability for each respective
value of the plurality of categories of values; receiving
information about current values of the plurality of categories for
the attribute of interest for each respective advertising campaign;
determining a pacing value, wherein the determining is based on the
respective probability for each respective value of the plurality
of categories of values and the information about current values
the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest;
adjusting a respective bid value of a bid of the one or more bids
to produce an adjusted bid value, wherein the adjusting comprises
varying the respective bid value of the bid according to the pacing
value; conducting an auction using the one or more bids and the
adjusted bid value, to select a bid to provide the advertisement in
response to the current bid request; and communicating a message to
the web server, wherein communicating the message comprises
communicating an advertisement corresponding to the selected
bid.
2. The device of claim 1, wherein the receiving the information
defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving information
defining a gender of a user.
3. The device of claim 2, wherein the receiving the information
defining a respective probability for each respective value of the
plurality of categories of values comprising receiving information
defining a probability the gender of the user is male or receiving
information defining the probability the gender of the user is
female, or both.
4. The device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
comparing the information about the current values of the plurality
of categories for the attribute of interest for each respective
advertising campaign with a target delivery value for the plurality
of categories for the attribute of interest for one respective
advertising campaign; and based on the comparing, identifying a
skew in delivery of advertisements for the one respective
advertising campaign.
5. The device of claim 4, wherein the operations further comprise:
determining a value for the pacing value to reduce the skew in
delivery of the advertisements for the one respective advertising
campaign.
6. The device of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise:
multiplying the value for the pacing value to reduce the skew by
the respective bid value to produce the adjusted bid value.
7. The device of claim 1, wherein the adjusting the respective bid
value of the bid to produce an adjusted bid value comprises,
varying a probability that the bid will win the auction to provide
the advertisement in response to the current bid request.
8. The device of claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise:
identifying a skew in delivery of advertisements for a respective
advertising campaign; and reducing the skew in delivery of the
advertisements, wherein the reducing the skew comprises varying the
probability that the bid will win the auction to provide the
advertisement to reduce the skew.
9. The device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:
receiving subsequently updated information defining the attribute
of interest for a subsequent ad call, wherein the receiving the
updated information defining the attribute of interest comprises
receiving information defining an updated respective probability
for each respective value of the plurality of categories of values;
receiving updated information about current values of the plurality
of categories for the attribute of interest; determining an updated
pacing value, wherein the determining is based on the updated
respective probability for the each respective value of the
plurality of categories of values and the updated information about
current values the plurality of categories for the attribute of
interest; and adjusting a new respective bid value of a new bid of
one or more new bids to produce a new adjusted bid value, wherein
the adjusting comprises varying the new respective bid value of the
new bid according to the updated pacing value.
10. A non-transitory, machine-readable medium, comprising
executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system
including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the
operations comprising: determining an advertising attribute and a
target delivery value for one or more advertisements to be provided
for an advertising campaign in a transaction management computing
system; receiving a message from a web server requesting
publication of one or more web pages, wherein the message
corresponds to an ad call; delivering advertisements to the one or
more web pages in response to the ad call, wherein the delivering
the advertisements comprises receiving a current bid request to
provide a bid, determining one or more bids to provide an
advertisement in response to the current bid request and selecting
a winning bid from the one or more bids; monitoring the delivering
the advertisements, wherein the monitoring comprises monitoring a
delivered value for the advertising attribute; determining the
delivering the advertisements includes an advertising skew, wherein
the determining the delivering the advertisements includes an
advertising skew comprises comparing the delivered value for the
advertising attribute and the target delivery value for the one or
more advertisements; and adjusting future advertisement delivery,
wherein the adjusting is responsive to the determining the
delivering advertisements includes an advertising skew, and wherein
the adjusting the future advertisement delivery comprises
automatically adjusting future bid values to be provided in
response to future bid requests to compensate for the advertising
skew.
11. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 10,
wherein the adjusting comprises: adjusting a probability that an
advertisement associated with an adjusted bid value to reduce the
advertising skew.
12. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 10,
wherein the operations further comprise: determining a current
ratio status for the advertising campaign, wherein the determining
the current ratio status comprises determining a ratio of attribute
category values for an attribute of interest for the advertising
campaign; based on the current ratio status, determining a pacing
value; and adjusting a bid value to be served in response to a
future bid request according to the pacing value.
13. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 12,
wherein adjusting the bid value comprises multiplying the value by
the pacing value to produce an adjusted bid value.
14. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 13,
wherein the operations further comprise: conducting an auction
using the one or more bids to provide an advertisement in response
to the current bid request and the adjusted bid value; and
selecting the winning bid by comparing the one or more bids and the
adjusted bid value.
15. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 12,
wherein the operations further comprise: determining respective
probabilities for respective attribute category values for the
attribute of interest, wherein the determining the respective
probabilities includes determining historical probability values
for the respective attribute categories and determining a
historical number of impressions to which advertisements have been
served; and determining the current ratio status as a ratio of a
sum of historical probability values for the respective attribute
categories to the historical number of impressions.
16. The non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 10,
wherein the operations further comprise: periodically, re-adjusting
future advertisement delivery, wherein the re-adjusting is
responsive to identifying a new advertising skew, and wherein the
re-adjusting future advertisement delivery comprises automatically
adjusting one or more bid values to compensate for the new
advertising skew.
17. A method, comprising: receiving, by a processing system
including a processor, a message from a web server requesting
publication of one or more web pages, wherein the message includes
an impression to be filled with an advertisement; receiving, by the
processing system, information defining an attribute of interest
for the impression, wherein the attribute of interest comprises a
plurality of categories of values, and wherein the receiving the
information defining the attribute of interest comprises receiving
information defining a respective probability for each respective
value of the plurality of categories of values for the impression;
receiving, by the processing system, information about current
values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest
for an ad campaign; determining, by the processing system, a pacing
value, wherein the determining is based on the respective
probability for each respective value of the plurality of
categories of values and the information about current values the
plurality of categories for the attribute of interest; adjusting,
by the processing system, a respective bid value of a bid to
produce an adjusted bid value, wherein the adjusting comprises
varying the respective bid value of the bid according to the pacing
value; conducting an auction, by the processing system, using one
or more bids and the adjusted bid value, to select a bid to provide
the advertisement in response to the impression; and communicating
a message, by the processing system, to the web server, wherein
communicating the message comprises communicating an advertisement
corresponding to the selected bid.
18. The method of claim 17, wherein the receiving, by the
processing system, the information defining the attribute of
interest comprises receiving, by the processing system, information
defining a gender of a user.
19. The method of claim 18, wherein the receiving the information
defining a respective probability for each respective value of the
plurality of categories of values comprises: receiving, by the
processing system, information defining a probability the gender of
the user is male or receiving information defining the probability
the gender of the user is female, or both.
20. The method of claim 17, further comprising: comparing, by the
processing system, the information about the current values of the
plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for each
respective advertising campaign with a target delivery value for
the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for one
respective advertising campaign; and based on the comparing,
identifying, by the processing system, a skew in delivery of
advertisements for the one respective advertising campaign.
Description
FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE
[0001] The subject disclosure relates to fair demographic ratio
pacing in online content delivery systems.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Delivery of online information including advertisements is
often targeted to particular audiences. Targeting may be based on
any factor of interest, such as demographic makeup of an audience
of interest, geographic location of an audience of interest, past
online activities of an audience of interest. Targeting may be
customized for particular content providers.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0003] Reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings,
which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:
[0004] FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary,
non-limiting embodiment of a communications network in accordance
with various aspects described herein.
[0005] FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating an example,
non-limiting embodiment of a system functioning within the
communication network of FIG. 1 in accordance with various aspects
described herein.
[0006] FIG. 2B is an example, non-limiting embodiment of an
advertising platform functioning within the communication network
of FIG. 1 in accordance with various aspects described herein.
[0007] FIGS. 2C-2F illustrate several exemplary embodiments of
operation of the advertising platform of FIG. 2B 1 in accordance
with various aspects described herein.
[0008] FIG. 3A is a block diagram of a bid shading system for
managing advertisement delivery for an online advertising
campaign.
[0009] FIG. 3B is an exemplary performance curve for the bid
shading system of FIG. 3A.
[0010] FIG. 3C is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary,
non-limiting embodiment of operation of a bid shading system in an
advertising platform in accordance with various aspects described
herein.
[0011] FIG. 3D is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary,
non-limiting embodiment of a bid shading system in accordance with
various aspects described herein.
[0012] FIG. 3E is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary,
non-limiting embodiment of operation of a bid shading system in
accordance with various aspects described herein.
[0013] FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example,
non-limiting embodiment of a virtualized communication network in
accordance with various aspects described herein.
[0014] FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example, non-limiting
embodiment of a computing environment in accordance with various
aspects described herein.
[0015] FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an example, non-limiting
embodiment of a mobile network platform in accordance with various
aspects described herein.
[0016] FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example, non-limiting
embodiment of a communication device in accordance with various
aspects described herein.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0017] The subject disclosure describes, among other things,
illustrative embodiments for detecting and correcting undesired
imbalance in delivery distribution of targeting information in
online networked systems. Other embodiments are described in the
subject disclosure.
[0018] One or more aspects of the subject disclosure includes a
device receive, by the processing system, a message corresponding
to an ad call from a web server requesting publication of one or
more web pages and, in response, generating a current bid request
for bids to respond to the ad call. The device may receive one or
more bids to provide an advertisement in response to the current
bid request. Each respective bid of the one or more bids is
associated with a respective advertising campaign and comprises a
respective bid value. The device may receive, information defining
an attribute of interest for the ad call, the attribute of interest
including a plurality of categories of values and including
receiving information defining a respective probability for each
respective value of the plurality of categories of values. The
device may receive information about current values of the
plurality of categories for the attribute of interest for each
respective advertising campaign. The device may further determine a
pacing value based on the respective probability for each
respective value of the plurality of categories of values and the
information about current values the plurality of categories for
the attribute of interest. Further, the device may adjust a
respective bid value produce an adjusted bid value by varying the
respective bid value of the bid according to the pacing value. The
device may further conduct an auction using the one or more bids
and the adjusted value to select a bid to provide the advertisement
in response to the current bid request, and communicate a message,
by the processing system, to the web server, wherein communicating
the message comprises communicating an advertisement corresponding
to the selected bid.
[0019] The operations may further include determining an
advertising attribute and a target delivery value for
advertisements to be provided for an advertising campaign in a
transaction management computing system. The operations may further
include receiving a message corresponding to an ad call from a web
server requesting publication of one or more web pages and deliver
advertisements to the one or more web pages in response to the ad
call. Delivering advertisements may include receiving a current bid
request to provide a bid, determining one or more bids to provide
an advertisement in response to the current bid request and
selecting a winning bid from the one or more bids. The operations
may further include monitoring a delivered value for the
advertising attribute and determining that delivering
advertisements includes an advertising skew. Determining the
delivering advertisements includes an advertising skew may include
comparing the delivered value for the advertising attribute and the
target delivery value for the one or more advertisements. The
operations may further include adjusting future advertisement
delivery responsive to the advertising skew and including
automatically adjusting future bid values to be provided in
response to future bid requests to compensate for the advertising
skew.
[0020] One or more aspects of the subject disclosure include a
method including receiving a message from a web server requesting
publication of one or more web pages, wherein the message includes
an impression to be filled with an advertisement. The method may
further include receiving information defining an attribute of
interest for the impression, wherein the attribute of interest
comprises a plurality of categories of values, and receiving
information defining a respective probability for each respective
value of the plurality of categories of values for the impression.
The method may further include receiving information about current
values of the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest
for an ad campaign and determining a pacing value based on the
respective probability for each respective value of the plurality
of categories of values and the information about current values
the plurality of categories for the attribute of interest. The
method may further include adjusting a respective bid value of a
bid to produce an adjusted bid value, for example by varying the
respective bid value of the bid according to the pacing value. The
method may further include conducting an auction using one or more
bids and the adjusted bid value to select a bid to provide the
advertisement in response to the current bid request and
communicating a message to the web server. Communicating the
message may include communicating an advertisement corresponding to
the selected bid.
[0021] Referring now to FIG. 1, a block diagram is shown
illustrating an example, non-limiting embodiment of a
communications network 100 in accordance with various aspects
described herein. For example, communications network 100 can
facilitate in whole or in part an online content delivery system
which conducts an auction among bids to serve an advertisement to a
web page to fill an impression. The communication network 100 can
implement a ratio pacing system to detect and compensate for
unintentional bias or skew introduced in serving of content items.
In particular, a communications network 125 is presented for
providing broadband access 110 to a plurality of data terminals 114
via access terminal 112, wireless access 120 to a plurality of
mobile devices 124 and vehicle 126 via base station or access point
122, voice access 130 to a plurality of telephony devices 134, via
switching device 132 and/or media access 140 to a plurality of
audio/video display devices 144 via media terminal 142. Media
terminal 142 can include any type of user device such as a mobile
phone or smart phone, a tablet, a laptop or desktop computer or
connected television devices which can be connected to the internet
and access content beyond what is available via the normal offering
from a cable provider. In addition, communication network 125 is
coupled to one or more content sources 175 of audio, video,
graphics, text and/or other media. While broadband access 110,
wireless access 120, voice access 130 and media access 140 are
shown separately, one or more of these forms of access can be
combined to provide multiple access services to a single client
device (e.g., mobile devices 124 can receive media content via
media terminal 142, data terminal 114 can be provided voice access
via switching device 132, and so on).
[0022] The communications network 125 includes a plurality of
network elements (NE) 150, 152, 154, 156, etc. for facilitating the
broadband access 110, wireless access 120, voice access 130, media
access 140 and/or the distribution of content from content sources
175. The communications network 125 can include a circuit switched
or packet switched network, a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)
network, Internet protocol (IP) network, a cable network, a passive
or active optical network, a 4G, 5G, or higher generation wireless
access network, WIMAX network, UltraWideband network, personal area
network or other wireless access network, a broadcast satellite
network and/or other communications network.
[0023] In various embodiments, the access terminal 112 can include
a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM), cable modem
termination system (CMTS), optical line terminal (OLT) and/or other
access terminal. The data terminals 114 can include personal
computers, laptop computers, netbook computers, tablets or other
computing devices along with digital subscriber line (DSL) modems,
data over coax service interface specification (DOCSIS) modems or
other cable modems, a wireless modem such as a 4G, 5G, or higher
generation modem, an optical modem and/or other access devices.
[0024] In various embodiments, the base station or access point 122
can include a 4G, 5G, or higher generation base station, an access
point that operates via an 802.11 standard such as 802.11n,
802.11ac or other wireless access terminal. The mobile devices 124
can include mobile phones, e-readers, tablets, phablets, wireless
modems, and/or other mobile computing devices.
[0025] In various embodiments, the switching device 132 can include
a private branch exchange or central office switch, a media
services gateway, VoIP gateway or other gateway device and/or other
switching device. The telephony devices 134 can include traditional
telephones (with or without a terminal adapter), VoIP telephones
and/or other telephony devices.
[0026] In various embodiments, the media terminal 142 can include a
cable head-end or other TV head-end, a satellite receiver, gateway
or other media terminal 142. The display devices 144 can include
televisions with or without a set top box, personal computers
and/or other display devices. The display devices 144 can include
connected television devices which can be connected to the internet
and access content beyond what is available via the normal offering
from a cable provider.
[0027] In various embodiments, the content sources 175 include
broadcast television and radio sources, video on demand platforms
and streaming video and audio services platforms, one or more
content data networks, data servers, web servers and other content
servers, and/or other sources of media.
[0028] In various embodiments, the communications network 125 can
include wired, optical and/or wireless links and the network
elements 150, 152, 154, 156, etc. can include service switching
points, signal transfer points, service control points, network
gateways, media distribution hubs, servers, firewalls, routers,
edge devices, switches and other network nodes for routing and
controlling communications traffic over wired, optical and wireless
links as part of the Internet and other public networks as well as
one or more private networks, for managing subscriber access, for
billing and network management and for supporting other network
functions.
[0029] FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating an example,
non-limiting embodiment of a system 200 functioning within the
communications network 100 of FIG. 1 in accordance with various
aspects described herein. The system 200 may be operable to
facilitate in whole or in part an online content delivery system
which conducts an auction among bids to serve an advertisement to a
web page to fill an impression. The system 200 can implement a
ratio pacing system to detect and compensate for unintentional bias
or skew introduced in serving of content items.
[0030] FIG. 2A shows an exemplary embodiment of geographically
dispersed multi-tenant enterprise data centers 202 that are
connected via one or more communication backbone networks
(illustratively depicted by the heavy black lines). The
communication backbone networks enable high-speed and high-volume
data communications among the data centers. In an exemplary
embodiment, a data center 202 generally includes a plurality of
servers 204, storage units 206, load balancing tools 208 and
security tools 211. The servers 204 generally receive data over one
or more communication backbone networks, process data and provide
data over one or more communication backbone networks. The data
center 202 may host data processing and storage for one or more
tenants who are given access to components such as the servers 204
and the storage units 206. The storage units 206 operate to store
data for access by other components such as the servers. The load
balancing tools may operate to manage traffic within a single data
center 202 and between multiple data centers 202, and for routing
data between users a preferred or fastest data center 202. The
security tools 210 may operate to protect each tenant's data and
privacy. Other resources including power, cooling and
telecommunication-related resources (not shown) are also included
in each data center 202. The data centers 202 may interact with
other networks such as the public internet to communicate data with
other equipment associated with the tenants, users of tenant
networks and others as well.
[0031] An infrastructure computer system for an advertising
platform may be hosted on one or more of the data centers 202. This
infrastructure computer system may be referred to in some
embodiments as an advertising platform 214. The advertising
platform 214 may operate in an impression trading industry in which
advertising creatives are matched with impressions, or spaces on
web pages, video feeds and other locations that may be viewed by
users. The advertising platform 214 may provide an ecosystem or
network or cloud in which entities associated with an impression
trading industry may collaborate and share industry-specific
information without latency, bandwidth, and security issues that
may be associated with the public Internet. The impression trading
industry may connect for purposes of sharing information and
commerce disparate parties such as users, a bidding provider,
members, publishers and others. Such industry-specific information
shared within the advertising platform may include information
associated with one or more users, one or more bidding providers,
one or more members, one or more publisher pages, prices,
advertising creatives, or any suitable combination thereof.
[0032] The advertising platform 214 includes servers 204 of the
data center 102 that have been provisioned and deployed by data
center tenants using application programming interface (APIs)
specific to the advertising platform 214. In general, each server
204 that is provisioned and deployed by a tenant is reserved for
the exclusive use of that tenant. Doing so provides some measure of
predictability with respect to available resources. Reservation of
resources for exclusive use of a tenant provides security and
privacy with respect to the tenant's data.
[0033] Various tenants of the data center 202 may assume different
roles in the context of the impression trading industry. Tenants of
the data center 202 may include advertising platform providers,
impression selling members, impression buyer member, and bidders.
Other tenants may be hosted as well.
[0034] An advertising platform provider is an entity which
provisions and deploys one or more servers 204 of the data center
202 to function as a transaction management computing subsystem. A
transaction management subsystem may also be referred to as a
platform impression bus or simply Imp Bus. The Imp Bus facilitates
the transaction aspects of impression inventory trading. In
general, the Imp Bus processes ad requests, feeds data to members,
conducts auctions, returns ads to the publishers, keeps track of
billing and usage, returns auction-result data, and enforces
quality standards.
[0035] An impression seller member is an entity that sells
impression inventory. An impression seller member may be, for
example, a publisher of a web site or a video game or other online
resource. An impression seller member may provision and deploy one
or more servers 204 of the data center 202 to function as a web
delivery engine that accepts HTTP requests from web browsers
operable by impression consumers. Such a web delivery engine may
implement a variety of functions or features, such as
authentication and authorization request, handling of static and
dynamic content, content compression support, virtual hosting,
large file support, and bandwidth throttling or management.
Equipment of the impression seller member may provide other
functions, as well.
[0036] An impression buyer member may be an entity that buys
impression inventory. An impression buyer member may provision and
deploy one or more servers 204 of the data center 202 to operate to
serve advertising creatives or simply creatives. Creatives are data
which define an advertisement adapted to fill an impression on a
web page, in a video stream or in another location. In some
instances, creatives are stored on a storage unit 206 within the
data center 202, and the servers 204 of the impression buyer member
will serve such creatives directly from the storage units 206 of
the data center 202. In some instance, creatives are stored on an
ad server or a content delivery network located on a server located
remotely, outside of the data center 202. In such instance, the
servers 204 of the impression buyer will facilitate the serving of
creatives from the remote server. The entity may be an advertiser,
an advertising network, an advertising agency, an advertising
exchange, or a publisher.
[0037] To buy impression inventory, each impression buyer member
engages a decisioning computing subsystem to operate on its behalf.
Such a decisioning computing system may be referred to as a bidder.
The term bidder generally refers to a computing system or other
technological items rather than a person or entity that operates
it. In a typical embodiment, a bidder includes a bidding engine
that takes various pieces of bid-specific information as input and
generates a bid for a particular item of impression inventory on
behalf of an impression buyer member.
[0038] The advertising platform provides impression buyer members
with a number of different bidder options. These include, for
example, using a member-specific bidder. According to this option,
the advertising platform provider provides a source code skeleton
and allows an impression buyer partner to customize with priority
information. In this case, the entity that buys impression
inventory will further deploy a server 204 of the data center 202
to host a member-specific bidder for its exclusive use.
[0039] In another option, a hosted bidder is designed, built,
hosted, and maintained by the advertising platform provider and
allows each impression buyer member to simply upload bid guides or
modify basic parameters, such as user data, recency, location, etc.
In some instances, multiple impression buyer members use the hosted
bidder.
[0040] In another option a bidding provider is an entity that
provisions and deploys a server 204 of the data center 202 to
operate a bidder on behalf of one or more impression buyer members
with which it is contractually engaged. The bidder operable by the
bidding provider generally includes a proprietary optimization
bidding engine.
[0041] In some embodiments, tenants of the data center 202 may
further assume additional or different roles than that described
above. In some embodiments, the data center 202 and the advertising
platform 214 may include other participants and tenants, in
addition to those described above.
[0042] The advertising platform 214 also includes a cluster of
high-performance storage units 206 of the data center 202. Data
stored by a tenant on a storage unit 206 of the data center 202 may
be accessed exclusively by that tenant or shared with other tenants
within the data center if so configured. The types of data that may
be stored include advertising tags or ad tags, reserve price
information, advertising creatives, reserve creative information,
cookie information, and market analysis information. Other
information that may facilitate the trading of impression inventory
within the advertising platform 214 may also be stored on storage
units 206 of the data center 202.
[0043] The interactive nature of the Internet provides a number of
advertising solutions that take advantage of the two-way
communication and direct connections established between browser
and content server for every user. Web pages, web-enabled video
games, web-based broadcasts of multimedia programming, and
web-enabled photo frames are just a few examples of the types of
multimedia streams in which electronic advertisements may be
injected. Traditionally, creatives, including still images and
video advertisements, appear in ad spaces that are located within a
web page, a video stream or other location. More recently,
web-enabled video games have been coded to enable a creative to be
dynamically loaded within an ad space of a game frame, such as in
an image of a billboard on the side of a highway of a car racing
game, or in signage appearing to be affixed to a roof of a taxi cab
in a role playing game. Similarly, web-based broadcasts of
multimedia programming, such as a live broadcast or on-demand
replay of a sporting event, may be coded to enable a creative to be
dynamically loaded within an ad space of a broadcast frame.
Examples include an ad space behind home plate during the broadcast
of the sporting event. A creative may be inserted within an ad
space between broadcast frames, such as an ad space that coincides
with a live commercial break. Web-enabled photo frames are
generally configured to receive digital photos from photo sharing
sites, RSS feeds, and social networking sites or other sources
through wired or wireless communication links. Other electronic
content, such as news, weather, sports, and financial data may also
be displayed on the web-enabled photo frame.
[0044] Each of the multimedia stream types described above provides
a host of creative serving opportunities. To facilitate the
transaction of impression inventory on the advertising platform
214, an impression seller member such as a publisher of a web site
or a video game may associate each creative serving opportunity
with an ad tag. In general, an ad tag includes data or a data file
that specifies information indicative of attributes of an ad space
with which the ad tag is associated. In the case of an ad space
within a web page, the ad tag may specify, for example, the
language of the text displayed on the page; the nature of the
content being displayed on the page, such as business, politics,
entertainment, sports, and technology; the geographical focus, such
as international, national, and local, of the web page content; the
physical dimensions of the ad space; and the region of the page the
ad space is located. In the case of an ad space within a
web-enabled video game, the ad tag may specify the video game
category, such as role playing, racing, sports, puzzle, and
fighting; the age appropriateness of the video game, such as via an
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating symbol, including
for example, early childhood, everyone, everyone age 10 and over,
mature, teen, and adults only; and the nature of the content being
displayed within the game frame, such as via an Entertainment
Software Rating Board (ESRB) content descriptor, such as alcohol
reference, animated blood, crude humor, intense violence, language,
mature humor, nudity, tobacco reference, and drug reference. In the
case of an ad space within a web-based broadcast of multimedia
programming, the ad tag may specify the language of the audio
associated with the programming; the nature of the content
associated with the programming, such as business, politics,
entertainment, sports, and technology; the geographical focus of
the programming; and the time of day the programming is being
broadcast live or the time period in which the programming is
available on demand. For example, ad providers might have a
registration system on their supply and, therefore, they have
deterministic access to their user's demographic information. Then,
they could pass some or all user demographic information voluntary
or by an agreement to the bidder to increase the value of their
impressions.
[0045] In some implementations of the advertising platform 214, a
platform-specific ad tag may be generated and associated with one
or more ad spaces. In addition to the types of information
described above, other types of information, such as a universal
inventory identifier, a reserve price, and a list of approved
universal advertiser identifiers, may also be associated with a
platform-specific ad tag. The information associated with any given
platform-specific ad tag may be specified server-side, such as
tag_id=123&ad_profile_id=456, or maintained within the platform
by a server-side mapping, such as when the Imp Bus maintains a
server-side mapping of tag_id=123 to ad_profile_id=456. In the
latter case, once an ad space has been tagged, information
associated with the platform-specific ad tag may be easily modified
by adding or otherwise changing the information within the platform
without having to re-tag the ad space.
[0046] Each universal inventory identifier uniquely identifies a
multimedia stream within the platform. As an example, a multimedia
stream identified as large, such as the news website CNN.com may be
divided into multiple multimedia streamlets such as
CNN.com/entertainment, CNN.com/health, CNN.com/technology, and
CNN.com/travel. In this example, each multimedia streamlet is
assigned a universal inventory identifier within the platform. By
contrast, a multimedia stream designated as small, such as the news
website BostonHerald.com) may be assigned only one universal
inventory identifier. The inclusion of a universal inventory
identifier within a platform-specific ad tag enables bidders to
refer to impression inventory associated with a particular
multimedia stream in a common way. The size of the impression
inventory associated with a multimedia stream is not the only
factor in determining whether a multimedia stream is assigned one
universal inventory identifier or multiple universal inventory
identifiers. Other factors, such as the multimedia stream brand,
may also be used. For example, a single universal inventory
identifier may be assigned to a multimedia stream designated as
large, such as web pages with a myspace.com domain name, based on
its brand identity.
[0047] In some cases, a multimedia stream or some aspect of it
includes impression inventory that is designated within the
platform as direct inventory. In general, direct inventory refers
to impression inventory that is part of a pre-existing media buy.
Such a media buy is typically established by way of a contractual
agreement between an impression seller member and an impression
buyer member. The contractual agreement specifies the specific
impression inventory that is subject to an exclusive first right of
refusal on the part of the impression buyer member, and the reserve
price that bidders other than the bidder operating on behalf of the
impression buyer member must meet in order to take the impression
inventory away. This process will be described in more detail below
with respect to the exemplary use cases in the following
section.
[0048] In some cases, a multimedia stream or some aspect of it
includes impression inventory that may only be acquired by certain
impression buyer members, or more specifically, impression buyer
members that serve a specific brand of ad creatives. In such cases,
a bidder performs an offline process that synchronizes creatives
and/or brands that are approved or banned to run on the impression
inventory with a specific ad profile ID that is subsequently passed
along on the bid request.
[0049] Ad creatives for various campaigns may be stored in storage
units 206 of the data center 202 that function as an ad server for
an impression buyer partner or hosted on ad servers and content
delivery networks outside of the platform.
[0050] In some implementations of the advertising platform 214, an
impression buyer partner may be required to provide information
that characterizes each ad creative that may be served responsive
to ad calls from the platform and store such information within the
platform. Such information may include attribute information that
characterizes the type, dimensions, and content of the ad creative,
and information that identifies a location where the ad creative
can be retrieve, such as a redirect to a content delivery network.
In other implementations of the advertising platform 214, it is
merely recommended that such information be stored within the
platform and therefore accessible by the bidder acting on behalf of
the impression buyer partner with minimal latency during the
real-time bidding process. In still other implementations of the
advertising platform 214, the advertising platform provider itself
looks at the creatives and supplies any of these attributes.
[0051] In some embodiments, the creatives that are served in
response to ad calls from the advertising platform 214 conform to
requirements, such as legality, decency, and common sense. For
instance, creatives that promote gambling; depict libelous,
violent, tasteless, hate, derogatory, or illegal content; portray
partial or complete nudity, pornography, and/or adult themes or
obscene content; are deceptive or purposely mislabeled; or spawn
pops, simulate clicks, or contain malicious code, viruses, or
executable files are generally not permitted.
[0052] Some publishers may prefer the creatives that are served to
their inventory to comply with even more restrictive standards. For
instance, such standards may be in place in order to maintain the
reputation of the publisher's brand or to avoid promoting a rival.
To simplify and speed the creative approval process for publishers,
a list of preapproved creatives may be generated and maintained by
a creative auditing computing subsystem on the advertising
platform. When creating ad profiles, impression seller members can
search for and/or elect to automatically approve creatives on this
list, thus effectively outsourcing initial creative approval to a
platform-based audit. For instance, the platform-based audit may
review creatives for features such as having a meaningful and
easily discernable brand or product offering; rotating images but
not rotating brands or products; and having a brand on a
platform-based list of approved brands. Additionally, the
platform-based audit may prohibit creatives offering sweepstakes,
giveaways, quizzes, surveys, or other brand-less games. If a brand
is not discernable in a creative, it will not be approved and will
run only on a member's exclusive inventory. Creatives that are
modified after they have been audited will return to a pending
status until they can be audited again. In some instances,
advertisers may be charged a nominal fee in order to have their
creatives audited.
[0053] Impression seller members such as publishers may also review
and approve creatives on a case-by-case basis by creating an ad
profile. A default ad profile may be created for a publisher. If no
default ad profile is created for a publisher, all creatives may be
allowed to run on the publisher's domain. In some embodiments, an
ad profile includes three elements: members, brands, and creatives.
Member- and brand-level approval standards can be used to reduce
the number of creatives that need to be explicitly approved. For
instance, when setting up the ad profile, a publisher may choose a
designation such as trusted for members and brands that the
publisher believes will always present acceptable ads. If a member
or brand is marked or otherwise designated as trusted, all
creatives of that member or brand may run by default, mitigating
the need to audit each of that member's/brand's creatives. However,
in some embodiments, the publisher or other seller member can
override this default by reviewing the creatives and banning or
otherwise designating individually any creatives of the trusted
brand. The publisher may mark other members or brands as with a
designation such as case-by-case, meaning that none of the
creatives of that member or brand will run until explicitly
approved by the publisher. The publisher may also designate or mark
members or brands as banned, in which case none of the creatives of
the banned member or brand will be shown. If a member or brand is
banned, there is no ability to override the ban and approve a
specific creative without knowing and searching for an individual
creative identifier. In some instances, a separate ad profile may
be created for each advertising campaign.
[0054] The ad profiles may be stored by the transaction management
computing subsystem in an impression seller data store associated
with the corresponding impression seller member. Ad profiles may
further be updated or replaced in storage upon receipt of a new or
updated profile.
[0055] For more granular control over quality standards, the
publisher or other seller member may also be designated as approved
or banned or otherwise at the level of individual creatives. To
review specific creatives, the publisher can search for creatives
using specific criteria. A preview of the creative will appear and
the publisher selects whether to approve or ban the creative.
[0056] Similarly, in some embodiments, publishers or other seller
members may be required to conform to stated standards of legality,
decency, and common sense. For instance, publishers that embody any
of the following characteristics may not be permitted to
participate in the advertising platform: desktop applications,
download accelerators, non-website based widgets and/or toolbars;
gambling, including free, paid, or gateway to paid gambling;
libelous, violent, tasteless, hate, defamatory, or illegal content;
or nudity, pornography, and/or adult themes or obscene content;
peer to peer, bit torrent, or other websites facilitating illegal
file sharing; proxy sites facilitating anonymous web browsing;
sites enabling or permitting illegal activities and/or copyright
infringement; or Warez or mp3 downloads.
[0057] Inventory of impressions may be grouped into predefined
lists such that bidder clients can make decisions about a large
amount of inventory simply by knowing the group to which the
inventory belongs. The site that each impression that passes
through the Imp Bus belongs to is on a single class list. The list
to which a particular site and its corresponding impression belongs
is communicated along with the ad call to each bidder participating
in an auction. Individual bidders are then free to make their own
decisions about whether to bid on that impression.
[0058] Impressions may be grouped or categorized in any convenient
manner. In one example, inventory may be designated or categorized
as Class 1, Class 2, unaudited or Blacklist. In this example, Class
1 inventory has been audited by a platform-based auditor and
represents many of the most popular publisher brands on the
Internet. Each of the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) on the Class
1 list has a minimum monthly volume, such as 100,000 impressions
per month, and is certified to pass global inventory content
standards. The Class 1 list is intended to be completely safe for
any brand advertiser to purchase. Class 1 inventory does not
contain sites that feature user-generated content or social media.
Bidders accept Class 1 inventory by default.
[0059] Class 2 inventory in this example includes inventory that
has been audited but does not meet the Class 1 volume or content
criteria, but does meet the global inventory content standards.
Social networking content may be included in Class 2 inventory. For
instance, myspace.com, although a top publisher that by volume
satisfies the Class 1 criteria, in this example is placed on the
Class 2 list because it is designated as a social media web site.
Bidders accept Class 2 inventory by default. If a bidder has chosen
not to accept Class 2 inventory but also owns a Class 2 publisher,
the bidder will receive its own Class 2 traffic.
[0060] All other inventory that passes through the Imp Bus is
assigned the unaudited inventory label in this example. Sites
remain categorized as unaudited until audited and assigned to
another categorization. To ensure maximum advertiser brand
protection, bidders by default do not accept unaudited inventory.
However, a flag or other indicator can be set to enable acceptance
of unaudited inventory if desired. In another example, if a bidder
does not accept unaudited inventory but owns an unaudited
publisher, the bidder will receive its own unaudited traffic.
[0061] Further in this example, inventory designated or contained
in the Blacklist violates inventory content standards and has been
prohibited. For example, prohibition may mean that impressions on
the Blacklist will never reach the auction marketplace.
[0062] In some implementations of the advertising platform, a
multi-tenant user data store is provisioned within the advertising
platform 214 by a first user data store management component to
enable members of the impression trading industry. The multi-data
tenant store may also be referred to as a server-side user data
store. The multi-data tenant store operates to synchronize user
data information with a common set of platform-specific user
identifiers, or user IDs.
[0063] In some embodiments, each platform-specific user ID of the
server-side user data store is stored in association with data.
Some of the stored may be specific to a particular impression
consumer, such as data characterizing the impression consumer. In
general, data that is stored in association with a
platform-specific user ID may be supplemented and over the course
of time as the impression consumer interacts with web pages and web
delivery engines within the advertising platform 214.
[0064] In some implementations, all data stored in association with
a platform-specific user ID may be shared between all tenants of
the data center(s). In other implementations, mechanisms may be put
in place to limit access to the data stored in association with a
platform-specific user ID based on certain criteria. For example,
certain impression trading industry members may have contractual
agreements that specify exclusive sharing of data stored in
association with a particular set or sets of platform-specific user
IDs regardless of which web delivery engine a content request is
directed to. In another example, an impression trading industry
member may specify that all data stored in association with a
particular set or sets of platform-specific user-ids may be shared
with respect to a particular set of web delivery engines, some of
which may be associated with other impression trading industry
members.
[0065] In one specific implementation, user data information stored
in association with a platform-specific user ID is formed by
multiple segments of key-value pairs, where one or more key-value
pairs may define each segment. Access permissions may be associated
with one, some, or all of the segments to control which members
access the user data information of respective segments. Accessing
user data information may include reading, writing such data.
[0066] One issue that may arise following the serving of ads to a
single impression consumer by impression seller partners located in
geographically dispersed data centers is "synching collision."
Synching collision occurs when multiple impression seller members
attempt to simultaneously sync their user data information with a
particular segment of key-value pairs that defines the user data
information stored in association with a particular impression
consumer's platform-specific user-id. This is best described with
an example.
[0067] In the example, a user identified by user ID 12345 has two
browser windows open, one pointing to a landing page of
SiteAAA.com, which is hosted on a web server ("SiteAAA web server")
located in New York City, N.Y., and the other pointing to a landing
page of SiteBBB.com, which is hosted on a web server ("SiteBBB web
server") located in San Jose, Calif. Each web server makes an ad
call to the platform when the user 12345 navigates to respective
pages of SiteAAA.com and SiteBBB.com, each of which includes at
least one creative serving opportunity. This has the effect of
causing the advertising platform to receive two impression requests
for user 12345, one from the SiteAAA web server, which gets routed
to the platform's New York City data center, and the other from the
SiteBBB web server, which gets routed to the platform's Los
Angeles, Calif. data center. Each of the platform's data centers
includes a server-side user data store that has in it a variable
global-frequency associated with user-id=12345.
[0068] Suppose, at time t=0, the global-frequency key-value pair of
a user's impression frequency counter for user-id=12345 is "25".
Traditionally with cookies, the global frequency is set to a fixed
value. Synching collision occurs when two impression requests are
received nearly simultaneously and a "set global-frequency to 26"
notification is sent responsive to both impression requests. In
other words, only one of the impression requests is logged in the
user data store even though two are received. To avoid this
situation, the advertising platform is implemented to send an
"increment global frequency by 1" notification responsive each of
the impression requests. Returning to the example above, the New
York City data center will increment the global-frequency key-value
pair for user-id=12345 to "26" to account for the ad call received
from SiteAAA.com and transmit a message to the Los Angeles data
center to apply the same logic; the Los Angeles data center will
increment the global-frequency key-value pair for user-id=12345 to
"27" to account for the ad call received from SiteBBB.com and
transmit a message to the New York City data center to apply the
same logic. In this manner, even though the messages are processed
in different order on each site the final result is the same. That
is, the global-frequency key-value pair for user-id=12345 goes from
"25" to "27". User data store information is replicated
consistently across multiple data centers.
[0069] In some embodiments, a portion of data storage of the data
center 202 is designated as cookie space. Each bidder may be
assigned a section of cookie space, known as a client-side user
data store, in each user's browser. A bidder may freely push and
pull data into or out of its own client-side user data store on
each impression or pixel call. The data pushed into a particular
bidder's client-side user data store is passed into requests for
that bidder only, unless data contracts exist to allow the sharing
of data with other bidders. However, when data is stored
client-side by an advertiser outside of the user data store
associated with the advertising platform provider, that data is
inaccessible during an ad call, because the advertising platform
domain, rather than the advertiser domain, is accessing the data
forming the cookie. For this reason, data stored by the bidder is
preferably stored synchronously in the client-side user data store
by piggybacking a pixel call from the advertising platform.
[0070] In some implementations, user data is passed to the
client-side user data store using a JavaScript Object Notation
(JSON) mechanism. The advertising platform provider will execute a
JavaScript function stored in each bidder's server-side context
store and store the results in that bidder's section of the user's
client-side user data store. Strings, integers, vectors, hash
tables, and combinations of these may be stored and manipulated
server side using a fully featured programming language such as
JavaScript 1.8.1.
[0071] More particularly, a bidder's user data may be stored in the
user's cookie as a JSON object. During a bid request, the JSON
object is forwarded to the bidder. If no JSON object exists, an
empty object "{ }" may be returned. The JSON object is parsed for
reading using libraries provided by the advertising platform
provider. Instead of creating a new JSON object to send back to the
client-side user data store, a bidder includes in the bid response
a call to a predefined JavaScript function stored in association
with that bidder. The JavaScript function, which operates on a
global variable containing the user data, is executed by the Imp
Bus, and the results are stored in the client-side user data store.
In some embodiments, the advertising platform provider may provide
functions for use or customization.
[0072] For instance, a bidder may wish to track the number of times
a creative has been shown to a particular user or the most recent
time an ad was shown to that user. In response to receipt of a
notification that a creative has been served, a predefined function
provided by the advertising platform provider may enable frequency
and recency variables associated with that user to be
incremented.
[0073] In some embodiments, each data provider or bidder has its
own scheme for internally identifying users. In order to enable
integration between the bidder and the Imp Bus, the bidder-specific
user ID for each user is mapped to the platform-specific user ID
for the same user.
[0074] In general, the platform-specific user ID is stored in a
client-side user data store, such as in a client-side browser
cookie. The mapping between bidder user ID and platform-specific
user ID may exist in the bidder's data store, the server-side
cookie store of the advertising platform, or both. In some
instances, the bidder's user IDs are stored within the bidder's
reserved section of the client-side user data store. In this case,
the bidder's user ID is included in each request the bidder
receives from the Imp Bus, such as bid requests and pixel requests.
In other instances, the mapping information is stored within the
bidder's data store. In this case, when impression or pixel
requests are received by the bidder related to a platform-specific
user-id, the bidder looks up the mapping information in its own
data stores.
[0075] FIG. 2B shows an exemplary embodiment of an advertising
platform 214 that may be implemented, for example in a data center
202 of FIG. 1. For example, the advertising platform 214 can
facilitate in whole or in part an online content delivery system
which conducts an auction among bids to serve an advertisement to a
web page to fill an impression. In some embodiments, the
advertising platform 214 can implement a ratio pacing system to
detect and compensate for unintentional bias or skew introduced in
serving of content items. The advertising platform 214 is
functionally illustrated in FIG. 2B in conjunction with external
components including a web server 220 which implements a web site
designated SiteXYZ, a content delivery network 222, a browser 224
of an impression consumer, and a plurality of impression buyer
computer systems 226. The plurality of impression buyer computer
systems includes system 228 associated with impression buyer member
M, system 230 associated with impression buyer member N, system 232
associated with impression buyer member O, system 234 associated
with impression buyer member P and system 236 associated with
impression buyer member Q.
[0076] The advertising platform 214 includes an Imp Bus 240, a
server-side user data store 242, an ID service 244, a data store
246, a plurality of bidders including bidder A 248, bidder B 250
and bidder C 252, and an ad server 254. The Imp Bus 240 or
transaction management computing subsystem operates as a central
control point of the advertising platform 214. The Imp Bus 240
receives creative serving opportunities such as ad calls from
sources outside the advertising platform 214 including the SiteXYZ
web server 220. The Imp Bus 240 generates a bid request that
provides a multi-faceted characterization of each creative-serving
opportunity of the requested page. The Imp Bus 240 communicates the
bid request to each bidder 248, 250, 252 within the advertising
platform 214. In response, the Imp Bus 240 receives one or more
real-time bid responses on behalf of one or more impression buyer
members 228, 230, 232, 234 236. with which the bidder 248, 250, 252
is associated. The Imp Bus 204 identifies a winning bid from among
the bid responses returned by the bidders 248, 220, 252 and returns
a URL that identifies a location of a creative of the winning bid
to the SiteXYZ web server 202.
[0077] In exemplary embodiments, a bid request is generated by the
Imp Bus 214 and generally includes information that characterizes
the impression consumer or user. This information may include
demographic information such as age, gender, income and race
information, or geographic, psychographic and behavioral
information for the user. This information may be based on data
retrieved from the server-side cookie store of the server-side user
data store 242, the ad space, and an auction identifier. This
information may also be part of the ad call. The information about
the ad space may be based on information associated with a
platform-specific ad tag. In other embodiments, a bid request
provided by the Imp Bus 240 to the bidders 248, 250, 252 may
further include the following information: [0078] a. Members: If
included, a bidder may only consider the campaigns and creatives
associated with impression buyer members having identifiers
included in a Members array of information about identifiers for
impression buyer members. [0079] b. Userdata: The userdata attached
to the user's cookie owned by the bidder receiving the request.
[0080] c. Frequency: The total number of impressions for this user
across the advertising platform 214. [0081] d. Clicks: The total
number of clicks for this user across the advertising platform 214.
[0082] e. Recency: The number of minutes since the last impression
for this user across the advertising platform 214. [0083] f.
Session Frequency: The number of impressions in a current session
for this user. [0084] g. Estimated Winning Bid Price: The price
estimated to win the bid, based on predetermined and/or historical
criteria.
[0085] A bid request can include all of this information, any
combination of this information or additional information as
well.
[0086] The SiteXYZ web server 220 interacts with the content
delivery network 222 and the browser 224 of the impression consumer
to receive and provide information. For example, the SiteXYZ web
server 220 may receive a request for a web page from the content
delivery network 222, the web browser 224, or both. In return, the
SiteXYZ web server 220 proves the requested web page and other date
to the content delivery network 222, the web browser 224, or
both.
[0087] The impression consumer web browser 224 may operate in
conjunction with user equipment such as a mobile device, cellular
or wireless telephone, tablet computer, laptop or desktop computer,
or any other equipment that can instantiate a web browser or
provide access over a network to remote equipment such as the
content delivery network 222, the SiteXYZ web server 220, and the
ad server 254. The impression consumer web browser 224 may include
a client-side user data store. The client-side user data store
stores data locally, on the device of the web browser 224 or in
conjunction with the web browser. This locally stored data may
include cookies or other files and data which provide information
about the impression consumer, or user, associated with the web
browser, including demographic information about the impression
consumer. Demographic information may include the user's age,
gender, preferences, purchase history, browsing history,
identification, etc. The locally stored data may further include
geographic information about current or past locations of the
equipment associated with the web browser 224. Any other suitable
information may be stored in conjunction with the web browser 224.
Similarly, any stored information may be shared by application
programs or apps on the user equipment or the web browser 224 with
other equipment, including the advertising platform 214.
[0088] The server-side user data store 242 stores information
related to one or more users who access the advertising platform
242. For example, the server-side data store 242 in some
embodiments stores local copies of cookies and other information
stored in the client-side user data store associated with the
impression consumer web browser 224.
[0089] Each bidder 248, 250, 252 receives bid requests from the Imp
Bus 240 in response to an impression or other advertising placement
opportunity received at the advertising platform 214. The bid
request includes information about the impression and invites the
bidder, on behalf of one or more of the plurality 226 of impression
buyer members, to develop a bid to respond to the impression. The
response is in the form of a bid response provided to the Imp Bus
240. In some embodiments, a bid response includes information
identifying, for example, a bid price and a creative that is to be
served should the bid be identified as the winning bid of a
platform-based auction.
[0090] In exemplary embodiments, a bid response typically includes
a bid price and a creative that are to be served should the bid be
identified as the winning bid of a platform-based auction. The
actual creative may be supplied or, in the alternative, information
identifying the creative or providing a location such as a URL or
other network location where the creative can be found and
retrieved. In other exemplary embodiments, a bid response provided
by a bidder 248, 250, 252 to the Imp Bus 240 may further include
the following information: [0091] a. Member ID: This may be an
identifier of the impression buyer member whose creative is chosen
by the bidder 248, 250, 252 from a "Members" array of identifiers
in the bid request. [0092] b. Exclusive: This flag, which may have
exemplary value of yes or no, may indicate to the Imp Bus 240 that
the creative serving opportunity constitutes a pre-existing media
buy and the creative provided in the bid response is to be served.
No other bidders will be allowed to compete for the creative
serving opportunity. [0093] c. No bid: This flag, which may have
exemplary value of yes or no, may indicate to the Imp Bus 240 that
the bidder has returned a valid response but has chosen not to bid.
[0094] d. Price: The price, expressed as a cost per mille or
thousand impressions (CPM), that the bidder is willing to pay for
this impression. If exclusive, this is used only for reporting
purposes; if not exclusive, this value may represent a reserve set
by the bidder. Alternative pricing information may be provided,
such as a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-action (CPA), for example.
[0095] e. Userdata: Data to attach to the user, for example, by
storing in association with the user's platform-specific user-id,
if the bid response is selected as the winning bid. [0096] f.
Creative ID: Identification or location information of the
advertising creative to be served if the bid response is selected
as the winning bid. [0097] g. Used Data Provider: In some
embodiments, third-party data providers charge a fee when their
information is used to target or optimize an ad. Contractually in
such embodiments, bidders may be required to accurately report this
by setting an appropriate flag in the bid response.
[0098] A bid response can include all of this information, any
combination of this information or additional information as
well.
[0099] The advertising platform 214 conducts an auction using bids
to decide which ad creative will fill an ad call identifying an
impression to be filled. The bid responses provided by the bidders
248, 250, 252 compete in an auction to determine which bid request
is selected by the Imp Bus 214 for providing the creative in
response to the impression or other advertising placement
opportunity. The creative, or information about the creative, is
provided, for example, to the SiteXYZ web server 220. In some
embodiments, information about the creative selected in the auction
by the Imp Bus 240 is used by the SiteXYZ web server 220 to access
the creative in the ad server 254.
[0100] FIGS. 2C-2F illustrate several exemplary embodiments of
operation of the advertising platform 214. In these exemplary
embodiments, as in the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 2B, an
impression seller member hosts a web site identified as SiteXYZ.com
on a web server SiteXYZ web server 220. The web site provides a
number of creative serving opportunities, each of which is
associated with a platform-specific ad tag.
[0101] A request for a page of SiteXYZ.com that is generated by an
impression consumer's web browser is received at step 256 by the
SiteXYZ web server 202. If the requested page includes one or more
creative serving opportunities, the web server 202 makes an ad call
at step 258 to the advertising platform 214 by redirecting the page
request to the Imp Bus 204. The Imp Bus 240 examines a browser
header of the page request to determine if a platform-specific user
ID is included therein.
[0102] The following sections illustrate a number of exemplary use
cases following an ad call to the advertising platform 214. Actions
taken by various actors or participants within the advertising
platform 214 are tagged with respective reference numerals. To
minimize the repetition of textual description, in the following
sections cite a reference numeral may be cited as shorthand for an
action that may be taken by an actor or participant within or
outside the platform. The particular use cases illustrated, and the
level of detail illustrated in each use case, are intended to be
illustrative only and not exhaustive. Other use cases will be
evident to those of ordinary skill in the relevant art.
[0103] FIG. 2C illustrates a first use case involving a known
impression consumer, no restrictions on data sharing and an open
platform-based auction. The ad call is provided from the server to
the Imp Bus 240, step 258. The ad call is processed at the Imp Bus
240, for example by examining the contents of the ad call. If a
platform-specific user identifier, such as User ID 1234, is found
within a browser header of the ad call, the Imp Bus 240 determines
the page request as originating from a known impression consumer.
In response, the Imp Bus 240 retrieves at step 260 and step 262,
from a server-side cookie store 246 within the advertising platform
214, data that has been stored in association with the
platform-specific user-id.
[0104] Assume for this use case that none of the creative serving
opportunities on the requested page is restricted. That is, assume
the platform-specific ad tag does not specify a list of approved
universal advertiser identifiers with respect to impression buyer
members that may win an open platform-based auction to serve a
creative. Further assume for this use case that data retrieved from
the server-side cookie store 246 may be shared between impression
trading industry members without constraints.
[0105] The Imp Bus 240, or transaction management computing
subsystem, generates a bid request that provides a multi-faceted
characterization of each creative-serving opportunity of the
requested page. In some embodiments, there is a one-to-one
correspondence between creative-serving opportunities and bid
requests. That is, a bid request is generated for each ad tag
associated with the requested page. In some embodiments, the
multiple ad tags associated with the requested page are handled in
a single bid request.
[0106] In general, a bid request includes information that
characterizes the impression consumer. For example, the information
included a bid request may be based on data retrieved from the
server-side cookie store 246. Further, the information included in
a bid request may include information that characterizes the ad
space. For example, the information included in the bid request may
be based on information associated with the platform-specific ad
tag itself, such as data uniquely identifying the impression seller
member, an impression inventory identifier, an impression inventory
categorization identifier, or a universal impression inventory
identifier; or data characterizing the impression, the impression
seller member, the impression inventory source, or an impression
inventory category. Still further, the information included in a
bid request may include information forming an auction identifier.
Because in this use case there are no constraints placed on the
sharing of data between impression trading industry members, one
bid request, labelled Bid request Common 264, in the drawing, may
be generated and sent to all bidders 248, 250, 252.
[0107] The Imp Bus 240 sends, at step 262 the bid request to each
bidder 248, 250, 252 within the advertising platform 214. The
information included in the bid request is used, at least in part,
by a bidding engine of each bidder 248, 250, 252 or a decisioning
processor of a decisioning subsystem to generate a real-time bid
response on behalf of an impression buyer member 228, 230, 232,
234, 236 with which the bidder 248, 25, 252 is associated.
Respective impression buyer members 228, 230, 232, 234, 236 may
return at step 264 the bid response to the Imp Bus 240. At a
minimum, the bid response identifies a bid price, determined, for
instance, using optimization techniques; and a creative that is to
be served should the bid be identified as the winning bid of a
platform-based auction. A bidder (e.g., Bidder A 248) may be
associated with multiple impression buyer members (e.g., Impression
Buyer Member M 228 and Impression Buyer Member N 230). In such
instances, the respective bidding engines implemented by the
respective bidders 248, 250, 252 may be operable to conduct an
internal auction using bids of the respective bid requests to
identify a winning bid from among the eligible campaigns of its
associated impression buyer members, and to generate a bid response
for the platform-based auction based conducted by the Imp Bus 214
on the result of the internal auction.
[0108] Following return of the bid responses at step 264 by the
bidders 248, 250, 252 or decisioning subsystems to the Imp Bus 214
or transaction management computing subsystem, the Imp Bus 214
identifies a winning bid. This is done within a predetermined
response time period such as a period measured in milliseconds. In
most instances, the winning bid is the bid associated with the
highest dollar value, and the best price for a creative serving
opportunity is the price that yields the highest revenue for the
impression seller member. In some embodiments, the winning bid and
the best price are based on other metrics, such as ad frequency. In
some embodiments, if the winning bid response is associated with an
ad creative that has not been approved by the impression seller
member, the second-ranked bid response is selected as the winning
bid.
[0109] The Imp Bus 214 at step 266 returns information that
identifies a location of a creative of the winning bid to the
SiteXYZ web server 220. The identifying information may be, for
example, a URL. In the depicted example, the SiteXYZ web server 220
returns, step 268, to the impression consumer's web browser 224,
content forming the page requested at step 256. A tracking
mechanism may be implemented to track presentation of the
impression to the web browser 204. For example, the content forming
the requested page may be embedded with an impression tracking
mechanism that causes the impression consumer's web browser 224 to
first point to the Imp Bus 214. This operates to allow the Imp Bus
214 to count the impression as served. Subsequently, the web
browser 224 is redirected to cause the web browser 224 to retrieve,
at step 270, step 272, the ad creative to be served from an ad
server 254 within the advertising platform 214 or a server of a
content delivery network 222. In another example, the SiteXYZ web
server 220 returns to the impression consumer's web browser 224 the
requested page, a first URL that points to the ad creative to be
served, and a second URL that points to the Imp Bus 214 for use by
the Imp Bus in counting the impression as served.
[0110] FIG. 2D illustrates a second use case involving a known
impression consumer in a transaction with restrictions on data
sharing in an open platform-based auction. As described above, the
Imp Bus 240 receives the ad call, step 258, and fetches data from
the user data store, step 260, step 262. In this use case, assume
that restrictions have been placed on the sharing of data retrieved
from the server-side cookie store 246 between some of the
impression trading industry members. For each impression trading
member, the Imp Bus 240 examines the restrictions to identify the
subset of data retrieved from the server-side cookie store that may
be shared with that impression trading member. For each creative
serving opportunity of the requested page, the Imp Bus 240
generates an impression trading member-specific bid request. In the
exemplary embodiment of FIG. 2C, these are labelled Bid request
A-specific and Bid request B-specific. The specific bid requests
provide a multi-faceted characterization of a creative serving
opportunity. In general, the specific bid request of step 274
includes information that characterizes the impression consumer,
the ad space and an auction identifier. The information that
characterizes the impression consumer may include information based
on the subset of data retrieved from the server-side cookie store
that may be shared with that impression trading member. The
information about the ad space may be based on information
associated with the platform-specific ad tag itself.
[0111] At step 274, the Imp Bus 240 sends the appropriate bid
request to each bidder 248, 250, 252 within the advertising
platform 214. The advertising platform 214 acts on the bid requests
in a manner similar to that described above. At step 276, the ad
platform 214 returns bid responses to the Imp Bus 240. At step 266,
the Imp Bus 240 conducts an auction and identifies a winning bid
from among the bid responses returned at step 276 by the bidders
248, 250, 252. At step 268, the Imp Bus 240 returns a URL that
identifies a location of a creative of the winning bid to the
SiteXYZ web server 220. Step 268, step 270 and step 272 are
performed as described above to effect the delivery of an ad
creative.
[0112] FIG. 2E illustrates a third use case involving a known high
value impression consumer and no platform-based auction. This use
case may occur when an impression buyer member has purchased a
media buy giving exclusive access to a particular market, keyword
or other portion of the advertising space. In this example,
Impression Buyer Member O 232 has purchased an exclusive media
buy.
[0113] As described above, the Imp Bus 240 receives the ad call,
step 258, and fetches data from the user data store, step 260, step
262. The Imp Bus 240 examines each platform-specific ad tag found
within the browser header of the ad call to determine whether the
corresponding creative serving opportunity on the requested page is
part of a particular impression buyer member's pre-existing media
buy. For each creative serving opportunity on the requested page
that is part of an impression buyer member's pre-existing media
buy, the Imp Bus 240 generates a bid request-exclusive that
provides a multi-faceted characterization of that creative serving
opportunity. At step 278, the Imp Bus 240 sends the bid
request-exclusive to a bidder such as Bidder B 250 in the
illustrated example. The bidder, Bidder B 250, operates within the
advertising platform 214 on behalf of that particular impression
buyer member, in this example, Impression Buyer Member O 232.
[0114] The bidder, bidder A 248, that receives the bid request
examines the information that characterizes the impression consumer
to determine the value of the impression consumer to the impression
buyer member, in this example, Impression Buyer Member O 232.
Impression Buyer Member O 232 is the impression buyer for whom the
creative serving opportunity constitutes a pre-existing media buy.
If the value of the impression consumer exceeds a predetermined
threshold, the bidder (in this example, bidder A 248) selects a
creative from a campaign associated with the impression buyer
member, Impression Buyer Member O 232, for whom the creative
serving opportunity constitutes a pre-existing media buy, and
returns, step 280 to the Imp Bus 240 a redirect identifying the
location of the selected creative. The Imp Bus 240 sends at step
282 this redirect to the SiteXYZ web server 220. Step 268, step 270
and step 272 are performed as described above to effect the
delivery of an ad creative.
[0115] FIG. 2F illustrates an alternative use case involving a
known low value impression consumer, no restrictions on data
sharing and a constrained platform-based auction. In FIG. 2F, the
Buyer member Q 236 has made a pre-existing exclusive media buy. As
described above, the Imp Bus 240 receives the ad call, step 258,
and fetches data from the user data store, step 260, step 262. In
this example, data retrieved from the server-side cookie store 246
may be shared between impression trading industry members without
constraints.
[0116] The Imp Bus 240 examines each platform-specific ad tag found
within the browser header of the ad call received at step 258 to
determine whether the corresponding creative serving opportunity on
the requested page is part of a particular impression buyer
member's pre-existing media buy. For each creative serving
opportunity on the requested page that is part of an impression
buyer member's pre-existing media buy, the Imp Bus 240 generates a
bid request, designated as a Bid request Common in FIG. 2F, that
provides a multi-faceted characterization of that creative serving
opportunity and at step 282 directs that bid request to the bidder.
In the exemplary embodiment of FIG. 2F, the bid request is directed
to Bidder C 252. Bidder C 252 is operating on behalf of a
particular impression buyer member, in this example, Impression
Buyer Member Q 236. In general, the bid request sent at step 282
includes information that characterizes the impression consumer,
the ad space and an auction identifier. The information that
characterizes the impression consumer may be based on data
retrieved from the server-side cookie store. The information that
characterizes the ad space may be based on information associated
with the platform-specific ad tag itself.
[0117] The bidder (in this example, Bidder C 252) that receives the
bid request examines the information that characterizes the
impression consumer to determine the value of the impression
consumer to the impression buyer member, Impression Buyer Member Q
236 for whom the creative serving opportunity constitutes a
pre-existing media buy. If the value of the impression consumer
does not exceed a predetermined threshold, the bidder returns at
step 284 to the Imp Bus 240 an auction notification. In one
example, the auction redirect includes a redirect that identifies a
location of a reserve creative and a reserve price that other
bidders must meet in order to take the creative serving opportunity
away from the impression buyer member, Impression Buyer Member Q
236 for whom the creative serving opportunity constitutes a
pre-existing media buy.
[0118] Because in this exemplary use case, there are no constraints
placed on the sharing of data between impression trading industry
members, the Imp Bus 240 may send at step 286 the
previously-generated bid request, to each of the other bidders, in
this example, Bidder A 248 and Bidder B 250, within the advertising
platform 214. At step 286, the Bid request Common is now considered
a secondary bid request. Each of Bidder A 248 and Bidder B 250
examines the information that characterizes the impression consumer
to determine the value of the impression consumer to its associated
impression buyer members. In this example, Bidder A 248 is
associated with Impression Buyer Member M 228 and Bidder B 250 is
associated with Impression Buyer Member O 234. In some embodiments,
each of Bidder A 248 and Bidder B 250 generates a bid response to
be returned at step 288 to the Imp Bus 240.
[0119] The Imp Bus 240 first eliminates from contention those bid
responses having a bid price that fails to meet or exceed a reserve
price included in the auction notification received at step 284. If
all of the returned bid responses are eliminated, the Imp Bus 240
sends at step 290 the redirect that was included in the auction
notification to the SiteXYZ web server 202. If, however, at least
one of the returned bid responses meets or exceeds the reserve
price included in the auction notification, the Imp Bus 240
performs an auction, identifies a winning bid, and returns at step
290 to the SiteXYZ web server 220 a redirect that identifies a
location of a creative of the winning bid. Steps 268, 270, 272 are
performed as described above to effect the delivery of an ad
creative.
[0120] In one example, the impression buyer member Impression Buyer
Member Q 236 corresponds to an advertising agency and the creative
serving opportunity on the requested page is part of the impression
buyer member's pre-existing media buy for a first advertiser or
advertising network that engaged the advertising agency. The
advertising agency may choose to have its bidder, Bidder C 252,
conduct an internal auction to identify a winning bid among the
eligible campaigns of the other advertisers and advertising
networks associated with the advertising agency in those instances
in which the value of the impression consumer to the first
advertiser or advertising network does not exceed a predetermined
threshold. Only if the winning bid resulting from the internal
auction does not meet a reserve price set by the first advertiser
or advertising network for that creative serving opportunity does
the bidder, Bidder C 252, return to the Imp Bus 240 an auction
notification as described above.
[0121] At the conclusion of a platform-based auction, the Imp Bus
240 may generate a result notification for each bidder 248, 250,
252 that submitted a bid response responsive to a bid request. The
information included in a result notification may vary depending
upon implementation and circumstance. Examples of such information
include the following: [0122] a. Auction ID: An auction identifier
that uniquely identifies this particular auction from among all of
the platform-based auctions that have taken place within the
platform. [0123] b. Transaction ID: A transaction identifier that
uniquely identifies a transaction in the auction. [0124] c. Valid
Bid: This flag, which may be binary and set to either yes or no,
reports to the bidder the receipt of a valid bid response. [0125]
d. No Bid: This flag, which may be binary and set to either yes or
no, reports to the bidder the receipt of a no-bid response. [0126]
e. Impression Won: This parameter notifies the bidder as to whether
its bid response resulted in a winning auction and impression
served. [0127] f. Impression Won/Deferred: This parameter notifies
the bidder that its bid response resulted in a winning auction but
serving of its impression is being deferred. [0128] g. Winning
Price: This value represents the bid price that won the auction. In
some implementations, this parameter is excluded if the reserve
price specified by the impression seller member is not met. [0129]
h. Bid Price: This value represents the bid price submitted by the
bidder in this particular auction. [0130] i. Estimated Winning Bid
Price: This value represents a price that was estimated to win this
particular auction, based on predetermined and/or historical bid
data. [0131] j. Member ID: This value identifies the impression
buyer member for whom the bidder operated on behalf of in this
particular auction. Typically, this value is provided to the Imp
Bus in the bidder's bid response. [0132] k. Bidder ID: This value
identifies the bidder used in this particular auction. [0133] l.
Response Time: When provided, this value represents the number of
milliseconds that elapsed between the sending of a bid request to a
bidder and the receipt of a bid response from that bidder. This
parameter is excluded if no bid response is received by the Imp
Bus. [0134] m. Revenue Generated: This value represents revenue
generated by the sale of an impression. [0135] n. Impression
Consumer: This parameter reports information associated with the
impression consumer or the impression consumer's web browser.
[0136] o. Impression Consumer's Response: This parameter reports
information associated with the impression consumer's response to a
creative that was served. [0137] p. Impression: This parameter
reports information associated with the impression or advertising
space. [0138] q. Creative: This parameter represents or
characterizes the creative selected to be served. [0139] r. Ad Tag:
This parameter includes information associated with the ad tag.
[0140] s. Third-party ID: This parameter identifies any third-party
data providers that contributed data towards the generation of a
bid response.
[0141] The result notification may include other, additional or
less information, depending on a particular embodiment,
implementation or use case. The result notification maybe presented
or communicated in any suitable fashion, such as a message with a
number of designated, formatted fields for each item of
information. The information provided in the result notification
may be used by a bidder 248, 250, 252 or decisioning subsystem to
fine tune or otherwise modify its bidding strategy to better
position itself to win future platform-based auctions. Suppose, for
example, that a bidder consistently loses a platform-based auction
with a bid of $2.00 for a car buyer on a particular website such as
nytimes.com/autos. By examining the Winning Price information
provided in the result notification, the bidder may adjust a future
bid price to maximize its potential to win such a platform-based
auction without overpaying for the impression. Similarly, by
examining the Response Time information provided in the result
notification, the bidder may determine that its bid response is
being received outside of the predetermined response time period
set by the Imp Bus 240 and adjust its bidding algorithm to
accelerate the rate at which its bid response is generated and
returned to the Imp Bus 240. Such adjustments may be made
automatically after receipt and processing of the result
notification, or manually by a campaign manager, or a combination
of these.
[0142] A bidder can also pass to the Imp Bus 240 or transaction
management computing subsystem additional information such as a
user ID, a user frequency, a campaign ID, or others, to be passed
back to the same bidder during a result notification. This
additional information can also be useful to the bidder or to the
impression buyer member to manipulate bidding strategy or to
understand the results of an ad campaign.
[0143] From the advertising platform provider's standpoint, there
are advantages to preventing impression trading industry members
from obtaining detailed information about any one particular
impression consumer or creative serving opportunities within the
platform. For example, this minimizes the potential for an
impression trading industry member to sign up to transact on the
platform for a short period of time simply for the purposes of
obtaining detailed information about impression consumers and
quitting after a sufficient amount of detailed information has been
obtained. To that end, the Imp Bus 240 may be configured to filter
the information that is passed between the various impression
trading industry members during the course of transaction
platform-based auctions.
[0144] The use case illustrated in FIG. 2D illustrated a scenario
in which restrictions have been placed on the sharing of data
retrieved from the server-side cookie store between some of the
impression trading industry members. In this use case, for each
impression trading member, the Imp Bus 240 examines the
restrictions to identify the subset of data retrieved from the
server-side cookie store 242 that may be shared with that
impression trading member. The Imp Bus 240 generates an impression
trading member-specific bid request that includes information that
characterizes the impression consumer. The information may be based
on the subset of data retrieved from the server-side cookie store
that may be shared with that impression trading member, for
example.
[0145] In an alternative embodiment, the Imp Bus 240 or transaction
management computing subsystem may also filter the information that
is retrieved from the cookie store. In one embodiment, the Imp Bus
240 analyzes the entirety of the data retrieved from the
server-side user data store 242 or user data store 246 and provides
a somewhat abstracted version of the retrieved data in each
impression trading member-specific bid request.
[0146] In one example, the retrieved data includes information
about the impression consumer's gender, age, zip code, income, and
behavioral data. Also in this example, bidder A 248 previously
pushed information into the server-side user data store 242 to
identify this particular impression consumer's gender
(gender=male), income (income=$138,000), and behavioral data
(behavioral data=likes fishing, likes hunting) only; bidder B 250
previously pushed information into the cookie store to identify
this particular impression consumer's age (age=28), zip code (zip
code=02130), and behavioral data (behavioral data=buys ski gear)
only; bidder C 252 has never pushed information into the cookie
store with respect to this impression consumer. Other information
in the user data store 246 may have been provided by a third-party
data provider, an impression buyer member, and/or an impression
seller member.
[0147] The respective bid requests generated by the Imp Bus 240 may
be tailored to the data provided by each respective bidder. For
bidder A 248, the Imp Bus 240 may generate an impression trading
member-specific bid request that includes gender=male, age=25-35;
zip code=North East USA; income=$138,000, and behavioral data=likes
fishing, likes hunting, likes winter sports. For bidder B 250, the
Imp Bus 240 may generate an impression trading member-specific bid
request that includes gender=male, age=28; zip code=02130;
income=$100,000-$199,999, and behavioral data=likes outdoor sports,
buys ski gear. For bidder C 252, the Imp Bus 240 may generate an
impression trading member-specific bid request that includes
gender=male, age=25-35; zip code=North East USA;
income=$100,000-$199,999, and behavioral data=likes outdoor sports,
likes winter sports. Each bidder is provided detailed information
that it has itself pushed to the cookie store via a feedback
mechanism through the platform but is only provided an abstracted
version of the remaining information that is retrieved from the
cookie store.
[0148] In addition to providing an abstracted version of the data
retrieved from the cookie store, the Imp Bus 240 may also provide
an abstracted characterization of the creative serving opportunity.
For example, in lieu of specifying the URL of the page being
requested (e.g., lodgeatvail.rockresorts.com/info/rr.gcchalet.asp)
by the impression consumer's web browser, the Imp Bus 240 may
simply provide in the bid request an identifier of a category of
the page and site, such as high-end ski resort. More generally, the
Imp Bus 240 may provide data characterizing an impression, an
impression seller member, an impression inventory source, and/or an
impression inventory category. In some embodiments, the Imp Bus 240
sends a data retrieval request to an inventory management subsystem
operable to manage impression inventory information across multiple
impression inventory sources. One example of a scenario in which it
is advantageous to obfuscate the creative serving opportunity is as
follows. A publisher has a sales force that is tasked with
identifying impression buyer members with which to establish a
contractual relationship that defines a media buy. An impression
buyer member that is aware of the opportunity to obtain this
publisher's impression inventory at a lower price through
platform-based auctions may choose to bypass the publisher's sales
force altogether and take its chances on the open market. This has
the effect of reducing the number of media buys that are
established between the publisher and the impression buyer member
and/or altering the financial worth of the media buy from the
publisher's perspective.
[0149] In some embodiments, the Imp Bus 240 may provide data
uniquely identifying the creative serving opportunity, including
data uniquely identifying an impression seller member, an
impression inventory identifier, an impression inventory
categorization identifier, a universal impression inventory
identifier, and/or a universal resource locator.
[0150] FIG. 3A is a block diagram of a system 300 for managing
advertisement delivery for an online advertising campaign. An
advertising campaign may be characterized by, for example, a
campaign identifier, one or more keywords, advertising text, an
advertiser identifier, a landing page identifier such as a uniform
resource locator (URL), a campaign budget, campaign timing
information, etc. In one particular application, FIG. 3A is a block
diagram of an embodiment of a bid shading system 300. The system
300 has particular application for detecting variations in ad
delivery from targets specified by campaign managers, advertisers,
advertising agencies, advertising networks and others. For
convenience, these will be referred to herein collectively as
campaign managers.
[0151] A campaign manager or other person associated with an
advertising campaign may establish advertising delivery and
targeting goals for a campaign being managed by an advertising
platform. The targeting goals may specify features of particular
interest about an audience intended to see the campaign manager's
advertisements. Such targeting goals may specify demographic
information, geographic information, psychographic information and
behavioral information about an audience. Demographic information
includes a viewer's age, gender, income, marital status, etc.
Geographic information includes features such as a viewer's
location or residence. Psychographic information explains a
viewer's hobbies, spending habits, values, etc. Behavioral
information including information about brand response, how viewers
make purchasing decisions, etc. The campaign manager may use tools
to set targeting goals according to these and other categories and
the advertising platform will operate to automatically serve ads to
viewers to best achieve the targeting goals.
[0152] After a campaign is under way and the platform is operating
automatically, a skew or bias in ad delivery may develop. A
campaign manager's targeting goals for an ad campaign are intended
to achieve predetermined business goals of the advertiser, such as
increasing sales of a product or service among a market segment or
increasing brand awareness among a market segment. The actual
delivery of advertisements to an audience may vary from the
targeting goal of the campaign manager. For example, an ad campaign
targeted to viewers with an interest in men's dress pants will
cause viewers to see advertisements for such products. A percentage
of those viewers will respond to the advertisements by viewing the
advertisements, clicking on the advertisements or taking some
further action with respect to the advertisements. After a time,
because of the nature of the audience targeted, the number of
advertisements served may have a skew or bias in the audience that
has viewed the advertisements. For example, ads for men's dress
pants may be more likely to be responded to by men than women.
After a period of time, the audience that has viewed such ads may
have an intentional or unintentional bias towards male viewers This
may be undesirable to some campaign managers, who prefer to
maintain a balance in the gender of the viewing audience. This bias
or skew may be invisible to the campaign managers.
[0153] The advertising platform in accordance with the present
disclosure operates according to the campaign manager's targeting
goals to optimize a particular targeting goal, such as serving ads
primarily to viewers most likely to respond to the advertisement.
But while successfully optimizing for that targeting goal, a bias
may be introduced. In the example above, the bias or skew that is
introduced may be characterized as showing the ad to too many men,
or too few women.
[0154] This represents a technological problem. Many campaign
managers require monitoring and control over the audience for their
ads. A degree of control is provided through the advertising
delivery and targeting goals for a campaign. However, those are
generally set at the beginning of the campaign with limited
opportunities for adjustment during the duration of the campaign.
Moreover, the bias or skew that is introduced may be undetected
using conventional systems. This bias or skew is due to the nature
of the bidding, the nature of the products or service which are the
subject of the campaign, and the nature of the audience viewing and
responding to advertisements. In the example of a campaign for
men's dress pants, the campaign manager and the advertising
platform may have no way of detecting the bias that is introduced
in the form of too many male viewers or too few female viewers. The
demographic skew may be invisible, even after completion of the
campaign. Accordingly, there is a need for an automated system that
can detect and automatically compensate for a skew or bias in
viewer characteristics that arises during the life of a campaign.
The system and method must operate substantially in real time to
analyze a bidding opportunity, generate a bid for participation in
an auction to fill an impression on a web page being loaded on a
user's device in an amount of time generally indistinguishable to
the user.
[0155] FIG. 3A illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a bid shading
system 300 in accordance with various aspects described herein. The
bid shading system 300 in this example embodiment includes a
bidding function 304 which receives an impression 302, a controller
306, bid output 308, no bid output 310, storage logs 312 and a
model 314. Other embodiments may include more or fewer features or
components than those shown in FIG. 3A.
[0156] The bid shading system 300 operates to determine if a bid
should be generated in response to an ad call or impression 302.
Further, the bid shading system 300 operates to determine if the
bid should be shaded or adjusted to a higher or lower amount for a
given advertising campaign. The system may choose to shade the bid
in order to adjust or compensate for a skewed or biased targeting
goal of the advertising campaign. The advertising campaign may be
identified by a campaign identifier. The advertising platform which
implements the bid shading system 300 stores campaign data
according to the campaign identifier. The stored campaign data may
include any data pertinent to the campaign, such as targeting goals
of the campaign manager, information about bids received and
winning bids, information about all impressions filled and the
impression consumers who see advertisements, statistical data, etc.
In the example of FIG. 2B, the campaign data may be stored, for
example, in data store 246.
[0157] An impression 302 is received at the bidding function 304.
For example, when a web page is viewed by a browser of a device of
a user, an ad call is received. The ad call identifies an
impression on the web page to be filled. In the example of FIG. 2B
the ad call is received from the web server 220 by the Imp Bus 240.
In response to the ad call, the Imp Bus 240 generates an ad request
for one or more bidders 248, 250, 252, 254. The ad call may include
information about the impression consumer or user who viewed the
web page. The information may include demographic, geographic,
psychographic and behavioral information, for example, in a cookie
file or other device. Further, the information could be numeric,
categorical, or encoded in some manner. Still further, the
information could be deterministic or probabilistic in nature. The
bid request may include some or all of this information, and
respective bid request information may be tailored to respective
bidders. The bidders 248, 250, 252, 254 operate as described herein
to determine if and how much to bid on the impression. The
information about the ad call is contained in the impression 302.
Thus, for example, the impression 302 includes the information that
the person responsible for the current impression or ad call, the
viewer, is male or female. Alternatively, the information may be
probabilistic, expressing a probability that the viewer associated
with the ad call or impression is a male, such 80% likely to be
male.
[0158] The bidding function 304 may be implemented by one or more
bidders 248, 250, 252, 254 shown in FIG. 2B. Alternatively, the
bidding function 304 may be implemented by any other suitable
component or party participating in the bid shading system 300. The
bidding function 304 may be implemented in hardware, software or
any suitable combination. The bidding function 304 has access to
various data about the impression consumer who initiated the
impression 302 or ad call.
[0159] The bidding function 304 determines the probability that the
impression may match a targeting goal. In the illustrated example,
the gender of the viewer is the targeting goal of interest. The
gender targeting goal may be set at any suitable value by, for
example a campaign manager. For example, the bid shading system 300
may seek to keep the gender ratio, or the ratio of male and female
viewers at 1.0, or approximately fifty percent each, with some
permitted tolerance. In other examples, the gender ratio may be set
at seventy percent women to thirty percent men, or sixty percent
men to forty percent women.
[0160] Gender ratio is used in the illustrated example, However,
any other suitable demographic, geographic, psychographic or
behavioral characteristic could be used instead or in addition, or
other characteristics could be used as well. For this present
example, gender is the characteristic of interest. While the
discussion here focuses on a male-female or m-f binary gender
example, the system and method may be readily extended to
non-binary gen355
[0161] der examples as well including for example, m-f-x. The
bidding function produces a probability about the gender of the
impression consumer associated with the current impression being
processed or the viewer who has requested to view a web page that
generated an ad call. The bidding function 304 may not be able to
determine with complete certainty the gender of the individual that
is the source of the current ad call. Therefore, a gender
probability p(gender) is produced from available information.
[0162] In other examples, other characteristics may be monitored
and adjusted, and such characteristics may have more than a binary
value like male and female. For example, demographic information
for an audience segment may include income information, where
income is defined in bands from $0 to $50,000; $50,000 to $100,000;
$100,000 to $200,000; $200,000 to $500,000; and above $500,000. The
structures and functions illustrated herein may be readily adapted
to a characteristic such as income having more than two possible
values. Moreover, the structures and functions herein may be
further adapted to a multi-dimensional system which implements bid
shading for more than a single variable. Such a multi-dimensional
system may monitor both the gender and the income level of
impression consumers. Based on historical information for an ad
campaign, the bid shading system may develop bid recommendations
and bid shading values to optimize delivery of ads to achieve
desired gender ratios and income bands.
[0163] The bidding function 304 determined the probability that the
viewer is a specified gender, male or female. Further, the bidding
function 304 determines a bid value to return, for example, to the
Imp Bus 240 for participating in an auction by the Imp Bus 240 to
fill the impression. The determined bid value is passed to the
controller 306.
[0164] The controller 306 operates to determine if a bid should be
submitted to the auction or not, and, if a bid is submitted,
whether the bid should be shaded or not. A bid is shaded when the
bid value is adjusted upward or downward to compensate for a
perceived bias in the audience that has viewed advertisements for
the current advertising campaign. The controller 306 produces a
bidding indication at outputs 308, 310 of the controller 306. Any
suitable bidding indication may be produced. In the example of FIG.
3A, the controller 306 produces at a bid output 308 an indication
that a bid should be produced, an indication that the bid should be
shaded, and a shading amount. Further in the example of FIG. 3A,
the controller 306 produces at a bid output 320 an indication that
no bid should be produced.
[0165] The result of the decision produced by the controller 306
may be stored in storage logs 312 for subsequent use by with model
314. The storage logs 314 may store, for example, past information
about the past impressions such as probability that an impression
was received from a male or female, or any other characteristic.
The illustration of the controller 306 with outputs 308, 310 in
FIG. 3A is intended to be primarily conceptual to illustrate the
processes implemented by one or more data processing systems, for
example of an advertising platform such as the advertising platform
214 of FIG. 2B. The bid or no bid decision produced by the
controller 306, as well as a shading and shading amount decision,
are intended to automatically correct for a bias or skew detected
by the controller in data for the current advertising campaign.
[0166] The controller 306 has access to a model 314. In one example
embodiment, the model 314 receives as input a campaign identifier
which uniquely identifies the current campaign as well as the
gender probability p(gender) received from the bidding function
304. The model 314 produces as an output information about which
decision to make, bid or no bid, and if bid, whether to shade or
not to shade. The model 314 operates on historical data. In one
embodiment, the model retrieves data from, for example, data store
246 of the advertising platform 214 of FIG. 2B. Further in some
examples, the model 314 uses historical data from a predetermined
time period. In one example, the predetermined time period is the
immediately preceding two weeks. Other examples of longer or
shorter duration may be used. For example, historical data can be
retrieved from the starting date of the current campaign. Moreover,
for purposes of privacy and confidentially, data used by the model
314 and the controller 306 are used solely by the model 314 and the
controller 306. Those data are preferably not shared with any other
components of the advertising platform. The data many be anonymized
or abstracted or otherwise made secure so that information about
users or impression consumers or advertisers or impression buyers
is not made otherwise available. This is true of the model 314
itself, as the model is trained over time based on historical
data.
[0167] The model 314 may produce a bid shading value. The value may
be a real number that can serve as a multiplier to another value to
control or manage bidding on the current impression. In one
example, the bid shading value is a number greater than or less
than 1.0 that may be multiplied by the bid value produced by the
bidding function 304 and provided to the controller 306. For
example, the model 314 may produce a bid shading value of 0.90 or
ninety percent. This would be an appropriate value if the model
determines that excessive ads have been served to the bid consumer
or web page viewer associated with the current impression being
processed. The excess ads served represents a skew or bias in the
serving of ads. There is a time domain component in that too many
ads have been served to date to viewers with this viewer's
characteristics. In the present example, if the viewer is male and
too many ads have been served to date during the present campaign,
based on the historical data from a predetermined time period, a
bid shading value less than 1.0 is appropriate to, in effect, slow
down the serving of additional ads to more male viewers.
[0168] In contrast, the model 314 may produce a bid shading value
of 1.20 or one hundred twenty percent. This would operate as a
multiplier to the bid value produced by the bidding function 304.
This would be an appropriate value if the model determines that
insufficient ads have been served to the bid consumer or web page
viewer associated with the current impression being processed,
based on a characteristic such as gender of the current bid
consumer. If not enough women have viewed ads for the current
campaign, and the gender probability p(gender) indicates this
viewer is likely female, the model 314 may produce a bid shading
value of 1.20. This would operate to speed up serving ads to more
women, including the current viewer, and to thereby compensate for
the bias introduced in the serving of advertisements to date.
[0169] Some embodiments may use an additional parameter X that is
introduced to stop bid shading from going too far and not overspend
all the budget on a few bids. X may be a maximum permitted bid
shading value, for example. It may be set to a static value or be
determined dynamically. In this case, bid shading is defined as a
minimum value between .rho.(bid shading value) and the value X.
[0170] The model is implemented as a set of instructions and data
that may be processed on a data processing system. The instructions
may be stored any convenient locations, such as the data store 246
of the advertising platform. Similarly, the data may be stored in
any convenient location, either locally or at a location available
over a network. The instructions and data may be processed by any
suitable data processing system including a processor.
[0171] FIG. 3B is an exemplary curve 318 for the bid shading system
300 of FIG. 3A. FIG. 3B shows time on the abscissa and a desired
gender ratio .rho. 320 and actual gender ratio on the ordinate. The
gender ratio corresponds to a ratio of males to females (or females
to males) viewing an advertisement. The desired gender ratio 320,
illustrated by the dashed line and letter .rho. in FIG. 3B, may be
received by the bid shading system 300 as an input from a campaign
manager, for example.
[0172] The desired gender ratio 320 serves as a targeting goal for
the bid shading system 300. The desired gender ratio may serve as a
fairness ratio. Any user characteristic, including demographic,
geographic, psychographic or behavioral or other characteristics
may establish a fairness ratio. Fairness may not be a one-to-one
ratio but may be determined based on particular goals of the
advertising campaign. Fairness is viewed from the perspective of
the impression buyer or advertiser. For example, the advertiser
might be advertising to fill an available job. If the job is one
that is traditionally or locally most commonly filled by males, and
the advertiser wishes to recruit females and males equally, the
fairness ratio may be adjusted by the advertiser to favor showing
the job advertisement to more female job seekers than male job
seekers to control the audience viewing the advertisement. This
addresses a technological problem that can be inadvertently
introduced by the nature of the viewing audience and the nature of
the product or service advertised. The impression buyer or
advertiser can adjust the fairness ratio provided as an input to
the bid shading system 300 and the bid shading system will
automatically compensate for the bias that is inadvertently
introduced, including when the advertiser is aware of the bias in
ad serving.
[0173] The model 314 of the controller 306 of the bid shading
system 306 receives or has access to historical data for
advertisements served during the duration of the advertising
campaign. This includes information about impressions received
including the impression 302, results of auctions that have been
conducted to serve impressions, etc. The controller 306 can
calculate or measure an actual gender ratio using the historical
data. Calculated or measured actual gender ratios are illustrated
as dots in FIG. 3B. For example, one hour after the campaign is
initiated, the actual gender ratio is below the desired gender
ratio 320. Two hours after initiation of the campaign, the actual
gender ratio is above the desired gender ratio 320. Three hours
after initiation of the campaign, the actual gender ratio is below
the desired gender ratio 320. Four hours after initiation of the
campaign, the actual gender ratio is slightly below the desired
gender ratio 320. As time elapses during an advertising campaign,
the bid shading system 300 seeks to match the actual gender ratio,
calculated at that time, for advertisements already served, to the
desired gender ratio 320. If the controller 306 determines that the
actual gender ratio is below the desired gender ratio 320 at a time
point, the controller 306 will produce a bid decision at the output
308 in FIG. 3A along with a bid shading value greater than 1 to
effectively speed up the serving of ads to impression consumers
like the current impression consumer. On the other hand, if the
controller 306 determines that the current actual gender ratio is
above the desired gender ratio 320 at a time point, the controller
306 will produce a bid decision at the output 308 in FIG. 3A along
with a bid shading value less than 1 to effectively slow down the
serving of ads to impression consumers like the current impression
consumer.
[0174] While FIG. 3B shows determining the actual gender ratio on
an hourly basis, any time increment may be used, including variable
time increments. The bid shading process operates like an automatic
accelerator or automatic brake to manage the serving of
advertisements in the campaign to optimize a goal of a campaign
manager. This may affect delivery of advertisements in the
campaign. Moreover, some embodiments may provide for optimization
for a number of values of plurality or characteristics of an
audience An example might combine the audience age demographic and
audience geography. Any other combination of audience features
could be processed together and bid shading could be used to adjust
ad delivery accordingly. In the illustrated example of FIG. 3B,
since a single characteristic, gender, is used, the curve 318 for
the bid shading system 300 is one dimensional with time. In
embodiments using more characteristics, the curve would be
multidimensional.
[0175] The system 300 of FIG. 3A implements a ratio pacing system
for maintaining a predetermined ratio of a specified
characteristic, such as gender of viewers of advertisements. The
system 300 operates to return a value for adjusting a proposed by
produced by one of bidder A 248, bidder B 250 and bidder C 252 of
FIG. 2B. The system knows the details of the current impression
302, including characteristics of the viewer such as the viewers
gender. The system determines a current gender ratio for the bidder
relative to a desired gender ratio .rho. 320 and produces a bid
shading factor or bid adjustment factor.
[0176] For example, consider an example where the current gender
ratio for ads served during the course of the campaign is
relatively low for females, meaning the campaign is biased low for
female viewers. That is, the current gender ratio as a function of
time is below the desired gender ratio .rho. 320 represented by the
line in FIG. 3B. Further in this example, the current impression
being considered for a bid by a bidder 248, 250, 252 is for a
female viewer. In that example, to remove the bias that has
developed in the gender ratio, the system 300 will produce a bid
shading factor greater than 1.0. This will be multiplied by the bid
produced by the bidder 248, 250, 252 to produce an adjusted bid
amount. The adjusted bid amount will then be used in the auction
among all bidders 248, 250, 252. Because the adjusted bid amount is
increased relative to the bid produced by the bidder, the
likelihood is increased of winning the auction and serving the ad
to the current impression, identified as a female viewer. This will
tend to reduce the apparent bias or to remove the skew in ad
serving.
[0177] In a similar example, where the current gender ratio for ads
served during the course of the campaign is again relatively low
for females, meaning the campaign shows a bias or skew that is low
for females, and the current impression 302 is a male viewer.
Because of the existing bias in gender of viewers to whom ads have
been served during the campaign, the system 300 will attempt to
compensate for the bias. In this example, to remove the bias that
has developed in the gender ratio, the system 300 will produce a
bid shading factor less than 1.0. This will be multiplied by the
bid produced by the bidder 248, 250, 252 to produce an adjusted bid
amount. The adjusted bid amount will then be used in the auction
among all bidders 248, 250, 252. Because the adjusted bid amount is
decreased relative to the bid produced by the bidder, the
likelihood is decreased of winning the auction and serving the ad
to the current impression, identified as a male viewer. This will
tend to reduce the apparent bias or to remove the skew in ad
serving.
[0178] In some embodiments, the controller 306 may implement as the
model 314 the relation
.rho. p a c e = .SIGMA. p ( impressions served since 0 hour ) total
number of impressions served . ##EQU00001##
[0179] The number .rho..sub.pace is a pacing factor. It may be
computed periodically, such as every hour by summing over past time
periods. The pacing factor .rho..sub.pace in this example
determines the total probability of, for example an impression
being served to a female, and divides by total number of
impressions served to determine an average probability over time.
The numerator represents that probability of the characteristic
occurring (gender, in this example) since the beginning of the
campaign or over any other predetermined period, e.g., the
probability that the impression or ad request is coming from a male
user, for example. The denominator represents the total number of
impressions served since the beginning of the campaign. This
information may be retrieved from stored data or determined from
stored data collected during processing of advertisements and
impressions or may be determined in any suitable fashion. The
pacing factor .rho..sub.pace may be used to shade bids produced by
bidders responding to an ad call or impression. The pacing factor
.rho..sub.pace may have a value from 0 to X, for example, where X
is set as the maximum pacing value. A value of 10 is one exemplary
value for X. The pacing factor .rho..sub.pace often will have a
value slightly larger than 1.0 or slightly smaller than 1.0 in
order to control pacing of a campaign to reduce perceived bias in a
characteristic such as gender of impression viewers. After a bidder
248, 250, 252 (FIG. 2B) determines bid values based on other
factors the pacing factor .rho..sub.pace may be used to shade the
bidder's vid value prior to determining a winning bid for the
impression in an auction. The bidder's bid value is shaded by the
pacing factor to increase or decrease the likelihood of the bid
winning the auction and thereby compensating for any bias that has
accumulated during the campaign.
[0180] Operated in conjunction with the curve 318 for the bid
shading system 300, the desired gender ratio .rho. 320 can be
compared with the pacing factor .rho..sub.pace. If the pacing
factor .rho..sub.pace exceeds the desired gender ratio .rho. 320,
then the system 300 should shade downward, or reduce the bid value
submitted to the auction to fill the impression by the bidder. If
the pacing factor .rho..sub.pace is substantially equal to the
desired gender ratio .rho. 320, the system should not shade the bid
positively or negatively but pass the bidder's determined bid to
the auction without modification. If the pacing factor
.rho..sub.pace is less than the desired gender ratio .rho. 320, the
system should shade upward, or increase the bid value submitted to
the auction to fill the current impression by the bidder. This may
be expressed as follows:
.rho..sub.pace>.rho..fwdarw.shade .dwnarw.
.rho..sub.pace=.rho..+-. .fwdarw.shade=1
.rho..sub.pace<.rho..fwdarw.shade .uparw.
[0181] In comparing .rho..sub.pace and .rho..+-. , it may be
desirable in some embodiments to specify a small range of values
.+-..epsilon. since the exact value may be difficult to achieve.
Any other suitable technique may be used to generate or adjust a
shading factor.
[0182] The model 314 may be trained in any suitable fashion. In one
particular embodiment, at an interval which may be regular such as
hourly, the model 314 or the controller 316 of the system queries
all campaigns that have enabled a ratio pacing function. For each
campaign that has enabled a ratio pacing function, the system 300
queries the composition of the audience reached so far. For
example, the composition may be expressed as a male-to-female
ratio. In deterministic or probabilistic fashion, each bidder knows
how many male or female audience members the bidder has bid for,
and how many auctions it has won. This data may be stored, for
example, in data store 246 of the platform 214 (FIG. 2B). Such data
is stored for other characteristics beyond gender, as well.
[0183] The system 300 then models the ratios that represent each
characteristic of interest to an advertiser for each campaign.
Characteristics may include gender, as in the present example, but
may also include any other characteristic of interest to the
advertiser, such as demographic, psychograph and behavioral
characteristics. After updating the mode, the system 300 then
notifies respective advertisers associated with campaigns to
reflect the updated statistics. Further, the system 300 notifies
the controller 306 that there are updated statistics on the
composition of the audience reached per campaign. The controller
306 loads the new parameters for each respective campaign and
applies new delivery rules to incoming ad requests.
[0184] FIG. 3C is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of
operation of a ratio pacing system in the advertising platform 214.
The method 316 may implement a ratio pacing system, also referred
to herein as a bid shading system, to adjust bid values in an
online advertising platform to compensate for inadvertent bias in
audience characteristics or parameters during serving of
advertisements in response to impressions in an advertising
campaign.
[0185] At block 322, it is determined if the advertiser opts into
the ratio pacing system for the campaign. The campaign is defined
by, for example, one or more target audience segments, a keyword or
keywords or a line item, and data supporting and produced by the
progress of the campaign. The campaign is managed by a campaign
manager on behalf of an advertiser. If the campaign manager
determines or suspects that there is or will be an unintended bias
or skew in the delivery of ads, creating an unintentional
unfairness in the delivery of ads, the campaign manager will opt in
to the ratio pacing campaign. This may be done through a dashboard
provided for the campaign manager by the advertising platform. If
the campaign manager does not opt in for this campaign, the method
316 ends at block 324.
[0186] If the campaign manager opts in to the ratio pacing
operation, at block 326, a pacing attribute is determined. In the
present example, gender of an impression viewer is used. Gender in
this example has a binary value, male or female. Other gender
values may be used as well. Also, any other suitable characteristic
or attribute of the campaign may be selected to monitor, including
any demographic, behavioral or psychographic characteristic. The
goal is to detect any unintentional skew in delivery of ads, where
the skew or bias is a variation from a campaign goal of the
campaign manager. For example, the campaign manager may desire to
serve 80% of ads to a female audience. If, after progress of the
campaign over time, data show 85% or 75% of ads have been served to
female viewers, a skew or bias has occurred and may be
corrected.
[0187] At block 328, the delivery of ads in response to received
impressions occurs. As described in more detail herein, or in
accordance with other embodiments of ad serving systems, ad calls
are received, bids are received, and a winning bid is accepted. The
winning bid is then used to fill the ad call. As this process
continues, data is accumulated which characterizes the campaign. At
block 330, it is determined from the accumulated data whether a
skew has occurred in the data. For example, in example above, if
85% of impressions were filled to female viewers when the campaign
goal was 80%, a skew or bias has arisen.
[0188] At block 332, steps are taken to correct the skew or bias.
In some embodiments, the system 300 of FIG. 3A may be implemented
to develop a bid shading value. The system 300 may produce a bid
shading value that will reduce the likelihood of a bid being the
winning bid. The system 300 may produce a bid shading value that
will increase the likelihood of a bid being the winning bid. In
some embodiments, the system 300 may decide to produce no bid at
all, for example, if the skew exceeds a predetermined threshold and
the skew or bias would be made worse if the current impression was
filled.
[0189] After adjusting the bid and proceeding with bidding for the
auction, the system determines at block 334 if the advertiser or
campaign manager has opted out of the ratio pacing system. The
advertiser or campaign manager may opt out at any time for any
reason. If the advertiser or campaign manager did not opt out,
control returns to block 338 to continue monitoring ad delivery and
detecting skew or bias. If the advertiser or campaign manager did
opt out, the method ends at block 336.
[0190] FIG. 3D is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary,
non-limiting embodiment of operation of a bid shading system in
accordance with various aspects described herein. In some
embodiments, the method 340 of FIG. 3D may be implemented by the
system 300 of FIG. 3A. The method 340 may implement a ratio pacing
method in accordance with embodiment described herein.
[0191] At block 342, the system initializes one or more pacing
parameters. In some examples, gender of an impression is chosen as
the pacing parameter. Gender refers to the gender of a viewer
associated with a current impression in an advertising serving
system. Gender may be deterministic or probabilistic. A gender will
be probabilistic when, given information received about the
impression, it can only be concluded with a specified probability
that the impression has a particular gender. The information
received about the impression may include demographic, geographic
and other information, past browsing history, cookie file data,
etc., as discussed herein. Any other characteristic or parameter,
other than or in addition to gender, may be chosen as the pacing
parameter. Examples included demographic parameters such as income,
geographic location, age, etc. Examples also include psychographic
and behavioral information for the impression. In some example,
more than one pacing parameter may be processed simultaneously.
[0192] At block 344, an impression or ad request or ad call is
received by the system for processing. These are simply referred to
as impression herein. The impression may be generated or received,
for example, when a user views a web page on a device such as a
computer, a tablet, a mobile device or a connected television. The
web page may include advertising slots or locations to be filled
with advertisements or other content. In accordance with some
embodiments, an auction is conducted by an advertising platform to
select an ad to fill the impression. The received impression may
include any suitable data organized in any suitable manner. For
example, the impression may include information about the user who
views the web page, including demographic, geographic,
psychographic or behavioral information. In a particular example,
the impression includes information about the gender of the user,
meaning one or more human entities, (e.g. having a capacity to make
inference based, at least, on complex mathematical formalisms),
which can provide simulated vision, sound recognition and so forth.
The gender information may be probabilistic in nature, such as an
80% probability the user is female.
[0193] At block 346, the system retrieves a bid value produced for
the impression and a probability of each category the specified
attribute. In some embodiments, the bid value is produced by a
bidder such as bidders 348, 350, 352 as described herein.
Conventionally, the bids produced by such bidders are used in
auction to determine an advertisement to fill the impression. In
accordance with some embodiments, the bid may be adjusted prior to
submission to the auction. The bid value may be retrieved from any
suitable location, such as storage logs 312 (FIG. 3A). In some
embodiments, the specified attribute of interest is gender. The
probability p(category) corresponds to the probability that the
impression has a female gender, p(female), or that the impression
has a male gender, p(male). This corresponds to the probability
that the viewer of the web page and advertisements thereon is
female or male. The probability p(category) may be retrieved from
any suitable storage such as the storage logs 312, or may be
received with other data forming the impression. The bid value and
the category probabilities may be forwarded, in some examples, to
the controller 306 of FIG. 3A.
[0194] At step 348, a current ratio status is collected. The
current ratio status is the ratio of impressions filled for each
category for the specified attribute. This may be a number that
varies over time, as a campaign progresses and impressions are
filled. When an impression is filled, data is stored about the
impression, including information about categories of attributes of
interest. For example, where the specified attribute is gender and
where possible categories are male and female, the current ratio
status may be female:male ratio, and may have a current value of
0.85. As more ads are served and impressions are filled, the
current ratio status may and likely will vary, in the manner shown
in FIG. 3B.
[0195] At block 350, based on the current ratio status, the system
generates a pacing value to de-skew the serving of ads, or remove
any unintentional bias, if necessary. In the manner illustrated by
FIG. 3B, the current ratio status, as a function of time, may vary
from a campaign goal ratio. The present embodiments detect the
variation and determine if a bias exists and if it should be
corrected. If so, at block 350, a pacing value to compensate for
the detected bias is determined. In some embodiments illustrated
herein, the controller 306 may output a pacing value that is used
to shade the bid value. If the delivery ratio is currently skewed
by an amount or a percent and the current ad request would increase
the skew, the system will adjust the pacing value to un-skew the
delivery of ads. This shading pacing modifier effectively increases
or decreases the probability that this ad request will be served,
and by that is able to balance the delivery mechanism and reduce
the skew.
[0196] At block 352, the system determines if the bid should be
adjusted. If applying the pacing value with reduce the skew, the
system may output the pacing value and adjust the bid accordingly,
block 354. A bid is then submitted to the auction, block 355. In
some cases, bidding or adjusting the bid may not operate to reduce
a detected skew. That may occur, for example, if the current ratio
status shows too many female impressions have been filled and the
current impression has a probability of being female. If not
bidding is the best option to reduce the current skew, the method
ends at block 358 and no bid is produced to fill the impression. If
bidding in the auction, using the pacing value to adjust the bid
value to increase or decrease the likelihood that adjust bid is the
winning bid, is the best option to reduce the current skew, at
block 360 the bid amount is adjusted and the bid is submitted to
the auction.
[0197] Some embodiments involve a pre-existing media buy. A
preexisting media buy is typically established by way of a
contractual agreement between an impression seller member and an
impression buyer member. The contractual agreement specifies the
specific impression inventory that is subject to an exclusive first
right of refusal on the part of the impression buyer member, and
the reserve price that bidders other than the bidder operating on
behalf of the impression buyer member must meet in order to take
the impression inventory away.
[0198] In the case of a pre-existing media buy, there is no auction
to select a winning bid. However, the principles of the examples
described herein may be readily extended to the pre-existing media
buy embodiment. For example, gender distribution is still tracked
in a pre-existing media buy arrangement and a decision on bid/no
bid can be still used. In that case, even though the media is paid
but the fairness ratio is exceeded, the system might decide to not
show an impression.
[0199] FIG. 3E is a flow diagram illustrating an exemplary,
non-limiting embodiment of operation of a bid shading system in
accordance with various aspects described herein. In particular,
FIG. 3E illustrates a method 362 for updating a model such as model
314 in the bid shading system 300 of FIG. 3A. The method 362 in
some embodiments may be performed at intervals, such as hourly. The
method begins at block 364 where processing is suspended until
completion of the specified interval. For example, after an hour
has elapsed while impressions are received and advertisements are
selected to fill the received impressions, the test of block 364
will be true and control proceeds to block 366.
[0200] At block 366, the system query all the campaigns that have
the ratio pacing feature enabled. As noted above, a campaign
manager in some embodiments must opt in to the ratio pacing
feature. At block 306, only campaigns which have the feature
activated will be queried for their current status and data.
[0201] At block 366, for each queried campaign, the system queries
the composition of the audience reached so far. For example, for an
attribute or characteristic of interest, the system will determine
how many impressions for each category have been filled. If the
attribute of interest is gender, and possible categories are male
and female, this data may be retrieved and processed for the
campaign to date. At block 368, for each queried campaign, the
system will model the ratios that represent each category of each
attribute that are of interest to the advertiser or campaign
manager. At block 370, the system will update the database (DB) of
campaigns for attributes ratios relationships. For example, data
stored in the storage logs 312 (FIG. 3A) may be updated for
subsequent usage by the model 314.
[0202] At block 372, the system may notify the controller 306 that
there are updated statistics on the composition of the audience
reached per campaign. The method for training the model 314 ends at
block 374.
[0203] While for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the
respective processes are shown and described as a series of blocks
in FIGS. 3C, 3D and 3E, it is to be understood and appreciated that
the claimed subject matter is not limited by the order of the
blocks, as some blocks may occur in different orders and/or
concurrently with other blocks from what is depicted and described
herein. Moreover, not all illustrated blocks may be required to
implement the methods described herein.
[0204] Referring now to FIG. 4, a block diagram 400 is shown
illustrating an example, non-limiting embodiment of a virtualized
communication network in accordance with various aspects described
herein. In particular a virtualized communication network is
presented that can be used to implement some or all of the
subsystems and functions of communication network 100, the
subsystems and functions of systems, and methods presented in FIGS.
1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2E, 2F and 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D and 3E. For example,
virtualized communication network 400 can facilitate in whole or in
part an online content delivery system which conducts an auction
among bids to server an advertisement to a web page to fill an
impression. The virtualized communication network 400 can implement
a ratio pacing system to detect and compensate for unintentional
bias or skew introduced in serving of content items.
[0205] In particular, a cloud networking architecture is shown that
leverages cloud technologies and supports rapid innovation and
scalability via a transport layer 450, a virtualized network
function cloud 425 and/or one or more cloud computing environments
475. In various embodiments, this cloud networking architecture is
an open architecture that leverages application programming
interfaces (APIs); reduces complexity from services and operations;
supports more nimble business models; and rapidly and seamlessly
scales to meet evolving customer requirements including traffic
growth, diversity of traffic types, and diversity of performance
and reliability expectations.
[0206] In contrast to traditional network elements--which are
typically integrated to perform a single function, the virtualized
communication network employs virtual network elements (VNEs) 430,
432, 434, etc. that perform some or all of the functions of network
elements 450, 452, 454, 456, etc. For example, the network
architecture can provide a substrate of networking capability,
often called Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI)
or simply infrastructure that is capable of being directed with
software and Software Defined Networking (SDN) protocols to perform
a broad variety of network functions and services. This
infrastructure can include several types of substrates. The most
typical type of substrate being servers that support Network
Function Virtualization (NFV), followed by packet forwarding
capabilities based on generic computing resources, with specialized
network technologies brought to bear when general purpose
processors or general purpose integrated circuit devices offered by
merchants (referred to herein as merchant silicon) are not
appropriate. In this case, communication services can be
implemented as cloud-centric workloads.
[0207] As an example, a traditional network element 150 (shown in
FIG. 1), such as an edge router can be implemented via a VNE 430
composed of NFV software modules, merchant silicon, and associated
controllers. The software can be written so that increasing
workload consumes incremental resources from a common resource
pool, and moreover so that it's elastic: so the resources are only
consumed when needed. In a similar fashion, other network elements
such as other routers, switches, edge caches, and middle-boxes are
instantiated from the common resource pool. Such sharing of
infrastructure across a broad set of uses makes planning and
growing infrastructure easier to manage.
[0208] In an embodiment, the transport layer 450 includes fiber,
cable, wired and/or wireless transport elements, network elements
and interfaces to provide broadband access 410, wireless access
420, voice access 430, media access 440 and/or access to content
sources 475 for distribution of content to any or all of the access
technologies. In particular, in some cases a network element needs
to be positioned at a specific place, and this allows for less
sharing of common infrastructure. Other times, the network elements
have specific physical layer adapters that cannot be abstracted or
virtualized, and might require special DSP code and analog
front-ends (AFEs) that do not lend themselves to implementation as
VNEs 430, 432 or 434. These network elements can be included in
transport layer 350.
[0209] The virtualized network function cloud 425 interfaces with
the transport layer 450 to provide the VNEs 430, 432, 434, etc. to
provide specific NFVs. In particular, the virtualized network
function cloud 425 leverages cloud operations, applications, and
architectures to support networking workloads. The virtualized
network elements 430, 432 and 434 can employ network function
software that provides either a one-for-one mapping of traditional
network element function or alternately some combination of network
functions designed for cloud computing. For example, VNEs 430, 432
and 434 can include route reflectors, domain name system (DNS)
servers, and dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) servers,
system architecture evolution (SAE) and/or mobility management
entity (MME) gateways, broadband network gateways, IP edge routers
for IP-VPN, Ethernet and other services, load balancers,
distributers and other network elements. Because these elements do
not typically need to forward large amounts of traffic, their
workload can be distributed across a number of servers--each of
which adds a portion of the capability, and overall which creates
an elastic function with higher availability than its former
monolithic version. These virtual network elements 430, 432, 434,
etc. can be instantiated and managed using an orchestration
approach similar to those used in cloud compute services.
[0210] The cloud computing environments 475 can interface with the
virtualized network function cloud 425 via APIs that expose
functional capabilities of the VNEs 430, 432, 434, etc. to provide
the flexible and expanded capabilities to the virtualized network
function cloud 425. In particular, network workloads may have
applications distributed across the virtualized network function
cloud 425 and cloud computing environment 475 and in the commercial
cloud, or might simply orchestrate workloads supported entirely in
NFV infrastructure from these third party locations.
[0211] Turning now to FIG. 5 there is illustrated a block diagram
of a computing environment in accordance with various aspects
described herein. In order to provide additional context for
various embodiments of the embodiments described herein, FIG. 5 and
the following discussion are intended to provide a brief, general
description of a suitable computing environment 500 in which the
various embodiments of the subject disclosure can be implemented.
In particular, computing environment 500 can be used in the
implementation of network elements 150, 152, 154, 156, access
terminal 112, base station or access point 122, switching device
132, media terminal 142, and/or VNEs 430, 432, 434, etc. Each of
these devices can be implemented via computer-executable
instructions that can run on one or more computers, and/or in
combination with other program modules and/or as a combination of
hardware and software. For example, computing environment 500 can
facilitate in whole or in part an online content delivery system
which conducts an auction among bids to server an advertisement to
a web page to fill an impression. The communication network 100 can
implement a ratio pacing system to detect and compensate for
unintentional bias or skew introduced in serving of content
items.
[0212] Generally, program modules comprise routines, programs,
components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or
implement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled
in the art will appreciate that the methods can be practiced with
other computer system configurations, comprising single-processor
or multiprocessor computer systems, minicomputers, mainframe
computers, as well as personal computers, hand-held computing
devices, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics,
and the like, each of which can be operatively coupled to one or
more associated devices.
[0213] As used herein, a processing circuit includes one or more
processors as well as other application specific circuits such as
an application specific integrated circuit, digital logic circuit,
state machine, programmable gate array or other circuit that
processes input signals or data and that produces output signals or
data in response thereto. It should be noted that while any
functions and features described herein in association with the
operation of a processor could likewise be performed by a
processing circuit.
[0214] The illustrated embodiments of the embodiments herein can be
also practiced in distributed computing environments where certain
tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked
through a communications network. In a distributed computing
environment, program modules can be located in both local and
remote memory storage devices.
[0215] Computing devices typically comprise a variety of media,
which can comprise computer-readable storage media and/or
communications media, which two terms are used herein differently
from one another as follows. Computer-readable storage media can be
any available storage media that can be accessed by the computer
and comprises both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and
non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation,
computer-readable storage media can be implemented in connection
with any method or technology for storage of information such as
computer-readable instructions, program modules, structured data or
unstructured data.
[0216] Computer-readable storage media can comprise, but are not
limited to, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM),
electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), flash
memory or other memory technology, compact disk read only memory
(CD-ROM), digital versatile disk (DVD) or other optical disk
storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage
or other magnetic storage devices or other tangible and/or
non-transitory media which can be used to store desired
information. In this regard, the terms "tangible" or
"non-transitory" herein as applied to storage, memory or
computer-readable media, are to be understood to exclude only
propagating transitory signals per se as modifiers and do not
relinquish rights to all standard storage, memory or
computer-readable media that are not only propagating transitory
signals per se.
[0217] Computer-readable storage media can be accessed by one or
more local or remote computing devices, e.g., via access requests,
queries or other data retrieval protocols, for a variety of
operations with respect to the information stored by the
medium.
[0218] Communications media typically embody computer-readable
instructions, data structures, program modules or other structured
or unstructured data in a data signal such as a modulated data
signal, e.g., a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and
comprises any information delivery or transport media. The term
"modulated data signal" or signals refers to a signal that has one
or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as
to encode information in one or more signals. By way of example,
and not limitation, communication media comprise wired media, such
as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media
such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.
[0219] With reference again to FIG. 5, the example environment can
comprise a computer 502, the computer 502 comprising a processing
unit 504, a system memory 506 and a system bus 508. The system bus
508 couples system components including, but not limited to, the
system memory 506 to the processing unit 504. The processing unit
504 can be any of various commercially available processors. Dual
microprocessors and other multiprocessor architectures can also be
employed as the processing unit 504.
[0220] The system bus 508 can be any of several types of bus
structure that can further interconnect to a memory bus (with or
without a memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus
using any of a variety of commercially available bus architectures.
The system memory 506 comprises ROM 510 and RAM 512. A basic
input/output system (BIOS) can be stored in a non-volatile memory
such as ROM, erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM),
EEPROM, which BIOS contains the basic routines that help to
transfer information between elements within the computer 502, such
as during startup. The RAM 512 can also comprise a high-speed RAM
such as static RAM for caching data.
[0221] The computer 502 further comprises an internal hard disk
drive (HDD) 514 (e.g., EIDE, SATA), which internal HDD 514 can also
be configured for external use in a suitable chassis (not shown), a
magnetic floppy disk drive (FDD) 516, (e.g., to read from or write
to a removable diskette 518) and an optical disk drive 520, (e.g.,
reading a CD-ROM disk 522 or, to read from or write to other high
capacity optical media such as the DVD). The HDD 514, magnetic FDD
516 and optical disk drive 520 can be connected to the system bus
508 by a hard disk drive interface 524, a magnetic disk drive
interface 526 and an optical drive interface 528, respectively. The
hard disk drive interface 524 for external drive implementations
comprises at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1394
interface technologies. Other external drive connection
technologies are within contemplation of the embodiments described
herein.
[0222] The drives and their associated computer-readable storage
media provide nonvolatile storage of data, data structures,
computer-executable instructions, and so forth. For the computer
502, the drives and storage media accommodate the storage of any
data in a suitable digital format. Although the description of
computer-readable storage media above refers to a hard disk drive
(HDD), a removable magnetic diskette, and a removable optical media
such as a CD or DVD, it should be appreciated by those skilled in
the art that other types of storage media which are readable by a
computer, such as zip drives, magnetic cassettes, flash memory
cards, cartridges, and the like, can also be used in the example
operating environment, and further, that any such storage media can
contain computer-executable instructions for performing the methods
described herein.
[0223] A number of program modules can be stored in the drives and
RAM 512, comprising an operating system 530, one or more
application programs 532, other program modules 534 and program
data 536. All or portions of the operating system, applications,
modules, and/or data can also be cached in the RAM 512. The systems
and methods described herein can be implemented utilizing various
commercially available operating systems or combinations of
operating systems.
[0224] A user can enter commands and information into the computer
502 through one or more wired/wireless input devices, e.g., a
keyboard 538 and a pointing device, such as a mouse 540. Other
input devices (not shown) can comprise a microphone, an infrared
(IR) remote control, a joystick, a game pad, a stylus pen, touch
screen or the like. These and other input devices are often
connected to the processing unit 504 through an input device
interface 542 that can be coupled to the system bus 508, but can be
connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, an IEEE
1394 serial port, a game port, a universal serial bus (USB) port,
an IR interface, etc.
[0225] A monitor 544 or other type of display device can be also
connected to the system bus 508 via an interface, such as a video
adapter 546. It will also be appreciated that in alternative
embodiments, a monitor 544 can also be any display device (e.g.,
another computer having a display, a smart phone, a tablet
computer, etc.) for receiving display information associated with
computer 502 via any communication means, including via the
Internet and cloud-based networks. In addition to the monitor 544,
a computer typically comprises other peripheral output devices (not
shown), such as speakers, printers, etc.
[0226] The computer 502 can operate in a networked environment
using logical connections via wired and/or wireless communications
to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer(s) 548.
The remote computer(s) 548 can be a workstation, a server computer,
a router, a personal computer, portable computer,
microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peer device or
other common network node, and typically comprises many or all of
the elements described relative to the computer 502, although, for
purposes of brevity, only a remote memory/storage device 550 is
illustrated. The logical connections depicted comprise
wired/wireless connectivity to a local area network (LAN) 552
and/or larger networks, e.g., a wide area network (WAN) 554. Such
LAN and WAN networking environments are commonplace in offices and
companies, and facilitate enterprise-wide computer networks, such
as intranets, all of which can connect to a global communications
network, e.g., the Internet.
[0227] When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 502
can be connected to the LAN 552 through a wired and/or wireless
communication network interface or adapter 556. The adapter 556 can
facilitate wired or wireless communication to the LAN 552, which
can also comprise a wireless AP disposed thereon for communicating
with the adapter 556.
[0228] When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 502
can comprise a modem 558 or can be connected to a communications
server on the WAN 554 or has other means for establishing
communications over the WAN 554, such as by way of the Internet.
The modem 558, which can be internal or external and a wired or
wireless device, can be connected to the system bus 508 via the
input device interface 542. In a networked environment, program
modules depicted relative to the computer 502 or portions thereof,
can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 550. It will be
appreciated that the network connections shown are example and
other means of establishing a communications link between the
computers can be used.
[0229] The computer 502 can be operable to communicate with any
wireless devices or entities operatively disposed in wireless
communication, e.g., a printer, scanner, desktop and/or portable
computer, portable data assistant, communications satellite, any
piece of equipment or location associated with a wirelessly
detectable tag (e.g., a kiosk, news stand, restroom), and
telephone. This can comprise Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) and
BLUETOOTH.RTM. wireless technologies. Thus, the communication can
be a predefined structure as with a conventional network or simply
an ad hoc communication between at least two devices.
[0230] Wi-Fi can allow connection to the Internet from a couch at
home, a bed in a hotel room or a conference room at work, without
wires. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology similar to that used in a
cell phone that enables such devices, e.g., computers, to send and
receive data indoors and out; anywhere within the range of a base
station. Wi-Fi networks use radio technologies called IEEE 802.11
(a, b, g, n, ac, ag, etc.) to provide secure, reliable, fast
wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used to connect
computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wired networks
(which can use IEEE 802.3 or Ethernet). Wi-Fi networks operate in
the unlicensed 2.4 and 5 GHz radio bands for example or with
products that contain both bands (dual band), so the networks can
provide real-world performance similar to the basic 10BaseT wired
Ethernet networks used in many offices.
[0231] Turning now to FIG. 6, an embodiment 600 of a mobile network
platform 610 is shown that is an example of network elements 150,
152, 154, 156, and/or VNEs 430, 432, 434, etc. For example,
platform 610 can facilitate in whole or in part an online content
delivery system which conducts an auction among bids to server an
advertisement to a web page to fill an impression. The
communication network 100 can implement a ratio pacing system to
detect and compensate for unintentional bias or skew introduced in
serving of content items. In one or more embodiments, the mobile
network platform 610 can generate and receive signals transmitted
and received by base stations or access points such as base station
or access point 122. Generally, mobile network platform 610 can
comprise components, e.g., nodes, gateways, interfaces, servers, or
disparate platforms, that facilitate both packet-switched (PS)
(e.g., internet protocol (IP), frame relay, asynchronous transfer
mode (ATM)) and circuit-switched (CS) traffic (e.g., voice and
data), as well as control generation for networked wireless
telecommunication. As a non-limiting example, mobile network
platform 610 can be included in telecommunications carrier
networks, and can be considered carrier-side components as
discussed elsewhere herein. Mobile network platform 610 comprises
CS gateway node(s) 612 which can interface CS traffic received from
legacy networks like telephony network(s) 640 (e.g., public
switched telephone network (PSTN), or public land mobile network
(PLMN)) or a signaling system #7 (SS7) network 660. CS gateway
node(s) 612 can authorize and authenticate traffic (e.g., voice)
arising from such networks. Additionally, CS gateway node(s) 612
can access mobility, or roaming, data generated through SS7 network
660; for instance, mobility data stored in a visited location
register (VLR), which can reside in memory 630. Moreover, CS
gateway node(s) 612 interfaces CS-based traffic and signaling and
PS gateway node(s) 618. As an example, in a 3GPP UMTS network, CS
gateway node(s) 612 can be realized at least in part in gateway
GPRS support node(s) (GGSN). It should be appreciated that
functionality and specific operation of CS gateway node(s) 612, PS
gateway node(s) 618, and serving node(s) 616, is provided and
dictated by radio technology or technologies utilized by mobile
network platform 610 for telecommunication over a radio access
network 620 with other devices, such as a radiotelephone 675.
[0232] In addition to receiving and processing CS-switched traffic
and signaling, PS gateway node(s) 618 can authorize and
authenticate PS-based data sessions with served mobile devices.
Data sessions can comprise traffic, or content(s), exchanged with
networks external to the mobile network platform 610, like wide
area network(s) (WANs) 650, enterprise network(s) 670, and service
network(s) 680, which can be embodied in local area network(s)
(LANs), can also be interfaced with mobile network platform 610
through PS gateway node(s) 618. It is to be noted that WANs 650 and
enterprise network(s) 670 can embody, at least in part, a service
network(s) like IP multimedia subsystem (IMS). Based on radio
technology layer(s) available in technology resource(s) or radio
access network 620, PS gateway node(s) 618 can generate packet data
protocol contexts when a data session is established; other data
structures that facilitate routing of packetized data also can be
generated. To that end, in an aspect, PS gateway node(s) 618 can
comprise a tunnel interface (e.g., tunnel termination gateway (TTG)
in 3GPP UMTS network(s) (not shown)) which can facilitate
packetized communication with disparate wireless network(s), such
as Wi-Fi networks.
[0233] In embodiment 600, mobile network platform 610 also
comprises serving node(s) 616 that, based upon available radio
technology layer(s) within technology resource(s) in the radio
access network 620, convey the various packetized flows of data
streams received through PS gateway node(s) 618. It is to be noted
that for technology resource(s) that rely primarily on CS
communication, server node(s) can deliver traffic without reliance
on PS gateway node(s) 618; for example, server node(s) can embody
at least in part a mobile switching center. As an example, in a
3GPP UMTS network, serving node(s) 616 can be embodied in serving
GPRS support node(s) (SGSN).
[0234] For radio technologies that exploit packetized
communication, server(s) 614 in mobile network platform 610 can
execute numerous applications that can generate multiple disparate
packetized data streams or flows, and manage (e.g., schedule,
queue, format . . . ) such flows. Such application(s) can comprise
add-on features to standard services (for example, provisioning,
billing, customer support . . . ) provided by mobile network
platform 610. Data streams (e.g., content(s) that are part of a
voice call or data session) can be conveyed to PS gateway node(s)
618 for authorization/authentication and initiation of a data
session, and to serving node(s) 616 for communication thereafter.
In addition to application server, server(s) 514 can comprise
utility server(s), a utility server can comprise a provisioning
server, an operations and maintenance server, a security server
that can implement at least in part a certificate authority and
firewalls as well as other security mechanisms, and the like. In an
aspect, security server(s) secure communication served through
mobile network platform 610 to ensure network's operation and data
integrity in addition to authorization and authentication
procedures that CS gateway node(s) 612 and PS gateway node(s) 618
can enact. Moreover, provisioning server(s) can provision services
from external network(s) like networks operated by a disparate
service provider; for instance, WAN 650 or Global Positioning
System (GPS) network(s) (not shown). Provisioning server(s) can
also provision coverage through networks associated to mobile
network platform 610 (e.g., deployed and operated by the same
service provider), such as the distributed antennas networks shown
in FIG. 1 that enhance wireless service coverage by providing more
network coverage.
[0235] It is to be noted that server(s) 614 can comprise one or
more processors configured to confer at least in part the
functionality of mobile network platform 610. To that end, the one
or more processor can execute code instructions stored in memory
630, for example. It is should be appreciated that server(s) 614
can comprise a content manager, which operates in substantially the
same manner as described hereinbefore.
[0236] In example embodiment 600, memory 630 can store information
related to operation of mobile network platform 610. Other
operational information can comprise provisioning information of
mobile devices served through mobile network platform 610,
subscriber databases; application intelligence, pricing schemes,
e.g., promotional rates, flat-rate programs, couponing campaigns;
technical specification(s) consistent with telecommunication
protocols for operation of disparate radio, or wireless, technology
layers; and so forth. Memory 630 can also store information from at
least one of telephony network(s) 640, WAN 650, SS7 network 660, or
enterprise network(s) 670. In an aspect, memory 630 can be, for
example, accessed as part of a data store component or as a
remotely connected memory store.
[0237] In order to provide a context for the various aspects of the
disclosed subject matter, FIG. 6, and the following discussion, are
intended to provide a brief, general description of a suitable
environment in which the various aspects of the disclosed subject
matter can be implemented. While the subject matter has been
described above in the general context of computer-executable
instructions of a computer program that runs on a computer and/or
computers, those skilled in the art will recognize that the
disclosed subject matter also can be implemented in combination
with other program modules. Generally, program modules comprise
routines, programs, components, data structures, etc. that perform
particular tasks and/or implement particular abstract data
types.
[0238] Turning now to FIG. 7, an illustrative embodiment of a
communication device 700 is shown. The communication device 700 can
serve as an illustrative embodiment of devices such as data
terminals 114, mobile devices 124, vehicle 126, display devices 144
or other client devices for communication via either communications
network 125. For example, computing device 700 can facilitate in
whole or in part an online content delivery system which conducts
an auction among bids to server an advertisement to a web page to
fill an impression. The communication network 100 can implement a
ratio pacing system to detect and compensate for unintentional bias
or skew introduced in serving of content items.
[0239] The communication device 700 can comprise a wireline and/or
wireless transceiver 702 (herein transceiver 702), a user interface
(UI) 704, a power supply 714, a location receiver 716, a motion
sensor 718, an orientation sensor 720, and a controller 706 for
managing operations thereof. The transceiver 702 can support
short-range or long-range wireless access technologies such as
Bluetooth.RTM., ZigBee.RTM., WiFi, DECT, or cellular communication
technologies, just to mention a few (Bluetooth.RTM. and ZigBee.RTM.
are trademarks registered by the Bluetooth.RTM. Special Interest
Group and the ZigBee.RTM. Alliance, respectively). Cellular
technologies can include, for example, CDMA-1.times., UMTS/HSDPA,
GSM/GPRS, TDMA/EDGE, EV/DO, WiMAX, SDR, LTE, as well as other next
generation wireless communication technologies as they arise. The
transceiver 702 can also be adapted to support circuit-switched
wireline access technologies (such as PSTN), packet-switched
wireline access technologies (such as TCP/IP, VoIP, etc.), and
combinations thereof.
[0240] The UI 704 can include a depressible or touch-sensitive
keypad 708 with a navigation mechanism such as a roller ball, a
joystick, a mouse, or a navigation disk for manipulating operations
of the communication device 700. The keypad 708 can be an integral
part of a housing assembly of the communication device 700 or an
independent device operably coupled thereto by a tethered wireline
interface (such as a USB cable) or a wireless interface supporting
for example Bluetooth.RTM.. The keypad 708 can represent a numeric
keypad commonly used by phones, and/or a QWERTY keypad with
alphanumeric keys. The UI 704 can further include a display 710
such as monochrome or color LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), OLED
(Organic Light Emitting Diode) or other suitable display technology
for conveying images to an end user of the communication device
700. In an embodiment where the display 710 is touch-sensitive, a
portion or all of the keypad 708 can be presented by way of the
display 710 with navigation features.
[0241] The display 710 can use touch screen technology to also
serve as a user interface for detecting user input. As a touch
screen display, the communication device 700 can be adapted to
present a user interface having graphical user interface (GUI)
elements that can be selected by a user with a touch of a finger.
The display 710 can be equipped with capacitive, resistive or other
forms of sensing technology to detect how much surface area of a
user's finger has been placed on a portion of the touch screen
display. This sensing information can be used to control the
manipulation of the GUI elements or other functions of the user
interface. The display 710 can be an integral part of the housing
assembly of the communication device 700 or an independent device
communicatively coupled thereto by a tethered wireline interface
(such as a cable) or a wireless interface.
[0242] The UI 704 can also include an audio system 712 that
utilizes audio technology for conveying low volume audio (such as
audio heard in proximity of a human ear) and high volume audio
(such as speakerphone for hands free operation). The audio system
712 can further include a microphone for receiving audible signals
of an end user. The audio system 712 can also be used for voice
recognition applications. The UI 704 can further include an image
sensor 713 such as a charged coupled device (CCD) camera for
capturing still or moving images.
[0243] The power supply 714 can utilize common power management
technologies such as replaceable and rechargeable batteries, supply
regulation technologies, and/or charging system technologies for
supplying energy to the components of the communication device 700
to facilitate long-range or short-range portable communications.
Alternatively, or in combination, the charging system can utilize
external power sources such as DC power supplied over a physical
interface such as a USB port or other suitable tethering
technologies.
[0244] The location receiver 716 can utilize location technology
such as a global positioning system (GPS) receiver capable of
assisted GPS for identifying a location of the communication device
700 based on signals generated by a constellation of GPS
satellites, which can be used for facilitating location services
such as navigation. The motion sensor 718 can utilize motion
sensing technology such as an accelerometer, a gyroscope, or other
suitable motion sensing technology to detect motion of the
communication device 700 in three-dimensional space. The
orientation sensor 720 can utilize orientation sensing technology
such as a magnetometer to detect the orientation of the
communication device 700 (north, south, west, and east, as well as
combined orientations in degrees, minutes, or other suitable
orientation metrics).
[0245] The communication device 700 can use the transceiver 702 to
also determine a proximity to a cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth.RTM., or
other wireless access points by sensing techniques such as
utilizing a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) and/or signal
time of arrival (TOA) or time of flight (TOF) measurements. The
controller 706 can utilize computing technologies such as a
microprocessor, a digital signal processor (DSP), programmable gate
arrays, application specific integrated circuits, and/or a video
processor with associated storage memory such as Flash, ROM, RAM,
SRAM, DRAM or other storage technologies for executing computer
instructions, controlling, and processing data supplied by the
aforementioned components of the communication device 600.
[0246] Other components not shown in FIG. 7 can be used in one or
more embodiments of the subject disclosure. For instance, the
communication device 700 can include a slot for adding or removing
an identity module such as a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card
or Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC). SIM or UICC cards can
be used for identifying subscriber services, executing programs,
storing subscriber data, and so on.
[0247] The terms "first," "second," "third," and so forth, as used
in the claims, unless otherwise clear by context, is for clarity
only and doesn't otherwise indicate or imply any order in time. For
instance, "a first determination," "a second determination," and "a
third determination," does not indicate or imply that the first
determination is to be made before the second determination, or
vice versa, etc.
[0248] In the subject specification, terms such as "store,"
"storage," "data store," data storage," "database," and
substantially any other information storage component relevant to
operation and functionality of a component, refer to "memory
components," or entities embodied in a "memory" or components
comprising the memory. It will be appreciated that the memory
components described herein can be either volatile memory or
nonvolatile memory, or can comprise both volatile and nonvolatile
memory, by way of illustration, and not limitation, volatile
memory, non-volatile memory, disk storage, and memory storage.
Further, nonvolatile memory can be included in read only memory
(ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), electrically programmable ROM
(EPROM), electrically erasable ROM (EEPROM), or flash memory.
Volatile memory can comprise random access memory (RAM), which acts
as external cache memory. By way of illustration and not
limitation, RAM is available in many forms such as synchronous RAM
(SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), double data
rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), Synchlink DRAM
(SLDRAM), and direct Rambus RAM (DRRAM). Additionally, the
disclosed memory components of systems or methods herein are
intended to comprise, without being limited to comprising, these
and any other suitable types of memory.
[0249] Moreover, it will be noted that the disclosed subject matter
can be practiced with other computer system configurations,
comprising single-processor or multiprocessor computer systems,
mini-computing devices, mainframe computers, as well as personal
computers, hand-held computing devices (e.g., PDA, phone,
smartphone, watch, tablet computers, netbook computers, etc.),
microprocessor-based or programmable consumer or industrial
electronics, and the like. The illustrated aspects can also be
practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are
performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a
communications network; however, some if not all aspects of the
subject disclosure can be practiced on stand-alone computers. In a
distributed computing environment, program modules can be located
in both local and remote memory storage devices.
[0250] In one or more embodiments, information regarding use of
services can be generated including services being accessed, media
consumption history, user preferences, and so forth. This
information can be obtained by various methods including user
input, detecting types of communications (e.g., video content vs.
audio content), analysis of content streams, sampling, and so
forth. The generating, obtaining and/or monitoring of this
information can be responsive to an authorization provided by the
user. In one or more embodiments, an analysis of data can be
subject to authorization from user(s) associated with the data,
such as an opt-in, an opt-out, acknowledgement requirements,
notifications, selective authorization based on types of data, and
so forth.
[0251] Some of the embodiments described herein can also employ
artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate automating one or more
features described herein. The embodiments (e.g., in connection
with automatically identifying acquired cell sites that provide a
maximum value/benefit after addition to an existing communication
network) can employ various AI-based schemes for carrying out
various embodiments thereof. Moreover, the classifier can be
employed to determine a ranking or priority of each cell site of
the acquired network. A classifier is a function that maps an input
attribute vector, x=(x1, x2, x3, x4, . . . , xn), to a confidence
that the input belongs to a class, that is, f(x)=confidence
(class). Such classification can employ a probabilistic and/or
statistical-based analysis (e.g., factoring into the analysis
utilities and costs) to determine or infer an action that a user
desires to be automatically performed. A support vector machine
(SVM) is an example of a classifier that can be employed. The SVM
operates by finding a hypersurface in the space of possible inputs,
which the hypersurface attempts to split the triggering criteria
from the non-triggering events. Intuitively, this makes the
classification correct for testing data that is near, but not
identical to training data. Other directed and undirected model
classification approaches comprise, e.g., naive Bayes, Bayesian
networks, decision trees, neural networks, fuzzy logic models, and
probabilistic classification models providing different patterns of
independence can be employed. Classification as used herein also is
inclusive of statistical regression that is utilized to develop
models of priority.
[0252] As will be readily appreciated, one or more of the
embodiments can employ classifiers that are explicitly trained
(e.g., via a generic training data) as well as implicitly trained
(e.g., via observing UE behavior, operator preferences, historical
information, receiving extrinsic information). For example, SVMs
can be configured via a learning or training phase within a
classifier constructor and feature selection module. Thus, the
classifier(s) can be used to automatically learn and perform a
number of functions, including but not limited to determining
according to predetermined criteria which of the acquired cell
sites will benefit a maximum number of subscribers and/or which of
the acquired cell sites will add minimum value to the existing
communication network coverage, etc.
[0253] As used in some contexts in this application, in some
embodiments, the terms "component," "system" and the like are
intended to refer to, or comprise, a computer-related entity or an
entity related to an operational apparatus with one or more
specific functionalities, wherein the entity can be either
hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or
software in execution. As an example, a component may be, but is
not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a
processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution,
computer-executable instructions, a program, and/or a computer. By
way of illustration and not limitation, both an application running
on a server and the server can be a component. One or more
components may reside within a process and/or thread of execution
and a component may be localized on one computer and/or distributed
between two or more computers. In addition, these components can
execute from various computer readable media having various data
structures stored thereon. The components may communicate via local
and/or remote processes such as in accordance with a signal having
one or more data packets (e.g., data from one component interacting
with another component in a local system, distributed system,
and/or across a network such as the Internet with other systems via
the signal). As another example, a component can be an apparatus
with specific functionality provided by mechanical parts operated
by electric or electronic circuitry, which is operated by a
software or firmware application executed by a processor, wherein
the processor can be internal or external to the apparatus and
executes at least a part of the software or firmware application.
As yet another example, a component can be an apparatus that
provides specific functionality through electronic components
without mechanical parts, the electronic components can comprise a
processor therein to execute software or firmware that confers at
least in part the functionality of the electronic components. While
various components have been illustrated as separate components, it
will be appreciated that multiple components can be implemented as
a single component, or a single component can be implemented as
multiple components, without departing from example
embodiments.
[0254] Further, the various embodiments can be implemented as a
method, apparatus or article of manufacture using standard
programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software,
firmware, hardware or any combination thereof to control a computer
to implement the disclosed subject matter. The term "article of
manufacture" as used herein is intended to encompass a computer
program accessible from any computer-readable device or
computer-readable storage/communications media. For example,
computer readable storage media can include, but are not limited
to, magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk,
magnetic strips), optical disks (e.g., compact disk (CD), digital
versatile disk (DVD)), smart cards, and flash memory devices (e.g.,
card, stick, key drive). Of course, those skilled in the art will
recognize many modifications can be made to this configuration
without departing from the scope or spirit of the various
embodiments.
[0255] In addition, the words "example" and "exemplary" are used
herein to mean serving as an instance or illustration. Any
embodiment or design described herein as "example" or "exemplary"
is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous
over other embodiments or designs. Rather, use of the word example
or exemplary is intended to present concepts in a concrete fashion.
As used in this application, the term "or" is intended to mean an
inclusive "or" rather than an exclusive "or". That is, unless
specified otherwise or clear from context, "X employs A or B" is
intended to mean any of the natural inclusive permutations. That
is, if X employs A; X employs B; or X employs both A and B, then "X
employs A or B" is satisfied under any of the foregoing instances.
In addition, the articles "a" and "an" as used in this application
and the appended claims should generally be construed to mean "one
or more" unless specified otherwise or clear from context to be
directed to a singular form.
[0256] Moreover, terms such as "user equipment," "mobile station,"
"mobile," subscriber station," "access terminal," "terminal,"
"handset," "mobile device" (and/or terms representing similar
terminology) can refer to a wireless device utilized by a
subscriber or user of a wireless communication service to receive
or convey data, control, voice, video, sound, gaming or
substantially any data-stream or signaling-stream. The foregoing
terms are utilized interchangeably herein and with reference to the
related drawings.
[0257] Furthermore, the terms "user," "subscriber," "customer,"
"consumer" and the like are employed interchangeably throughout,
unless context warrants particular distinctions among the terms. It
should be appreciated that such terms can refer to human entities
or automated components supported through artificial intelligence
(e.g., a capacity to make inference based, at least, on complex
mathematical formalisms), which can provide simulated vision, sound
recognition and so forth.
[0258] As employed herein, the term "processor" can refer to
substantially any computing processing unit or device comprising,
but not limited to comprising, single-core processors;
single-processors with software multithread execution capability;
multi-core processors; multi-core processors with software
multithread execution capability; multi-core processors with
hardware multithread technology; parallel platforms; and parallel
platforms with distributed shared memory. Additionally, a processor
can refer to an integrated circuit, an application specific
integrated circuit (ASIC), a digital signal processor (DSP), a
field programmable gate array (FPGA), a programmable logic
controller (PLC), a complex programmable logic device (CPLD), a
discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components or
any combination thereof designed to perform the functions described
herein. Processors can exploit nano-scale architectures such as,
but not limited to, molecular and quantum-dot based transistors,
switches and gates, in order to optimize space usage or enhance
performance of user equipment. A processor can also be implemented
as a combination of computing processing units.
[0259] As used herein, terms such as "data storage," data storage,"
"database," and substantially any other information storage
component relevant to operation and functionality of a component,
refer to "memory components," or entities embodied in a "memory" or
components comprising the memory. It will be appreciated that the
memory components or computer-readable storage media, described
herein can be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory or can
include both volatile and nonvolatile memory.
[0260] What has been described above includes mere examples of
various embodiments. It is, of course, not possible to describe
every conceivable combination of components or methodologies for
purposes of describing these examples, but one of ordinary skill in
the art can recognize that many further combinations and
permutations of the present embodiments are possible. Accordingly,
the embodiments disclosed and/or claimed herein are intended to
embrace all such alterations, modifications and variations that
fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Furthermore, to the extent that the term "includes" is used in
either the detailed description or the claims, such term is
intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term
"comprising" as "comprising" is interpreted when employed as a
transitional word in a claim.
[0261] In addition, a flow diagram may include a "start" and/or
"continue" indication. The "start" and "continue" indications
reflect that the steps presented can optionally be incorporated in
or otherwise used in conjunction with other routines. In this
context, "start" indicates the beginning of the first step
presented and may be preceded by other activities not specifically
shown. Further, the "continue" indication reflects that the steps
presented may be performed multiple times and/or may be succeeded
by other activities not specifically shown. Further, while a flow
diagram indicates a particular ordering of steps, other orderings
are likewise possible provided that the principles of causality are
maintained.
[0262] As may also be used herein, the term(s) "operably coupled
to", "coupled to", and/or "coupling" includes direct coupling
between items and/or indirect coupling between items via one or
more intervening items. Such items and intervening items include,
but are not limited to, junctions, communication paths, components,
circuit elements, circuits, functional blocks, and/or devices. As
an example of indirect coupling, a signal conveyed from a first
item to a second item may be modified by one or more intervening
items by modifying the form, nature or format of information in a
signal, while one or more elements of the information in the signal
are nevertheless conveyed in a manner than can be recognized by the
second item. In a further example of indirect coupling, an action
in a first item can cause a reaction on the second item, as a
result of actions and/or reactions in one or more intervening
items.
[0263] Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and
described herein, it should be appreciated that any arrangement
which achieves the same or similar purpose may be substituted for
the embodiments described or shown by the subject disclosure. The
subject disclosure is intended to cover any and all adaptations or
variations of various embodiments. Combinations of the above
embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described
herein, can be used in the subject disclosure. For instance, one or
more features from one or more embodiments can be combined with one
or more features of one or more other embodiments. In one or more
embodiments, features that are positively recited can also be
negatively recited and excluded from the embodiment with or without
replacement by another structural and/or functional feature. The
steps or functions described with respect to the embodiments of the
subject disclosure can be performed in any order. The steps or
functions described with respect to the embodiments of the subject
disclosure can be performed alone or in combination with other
steps or functions of the subject disclosure, as well as from other
embodiments or from other steps that have not been described in the
subject disclosure. Further, more than or less than all of the
features described with respect to an embodiment can also be
utilized.
* * * * *